We know there are approximately 500 cases a year where children are considered to be in such danger that gardaí need to intervene and remove them from their family to keep them safe. That is the sharpest edge of child protection. It is then the role of Tusla to provide a safe place for them to stay and to assess their family situation to see if they can return home with the right supports or if they can return home at all. One would have expected that both agencies would work seamlessly together on such serious cases of child protection.

We look forward to working with all our partners this year to transform our services. #4years pic.twitter.com/f4YubNEjZC

— Tusla - Child and Family Agency (@tusla) January 5, 2018

The Special Rapporteur on Child Protection, Professor Geoffrey Shannon, produced a report last year into how gardaí carry out their remit to protect children at risk in the home, under Section 12 of the Child Care Act 1991. He found that communication between Tusla and gardaí is “superficial and ineffective”. He went on to recommend that “consideration should be given to having social workers assigned to specialist child protection units” and that there should be a review of legislation to ensure that there are no legal roadblocks which might impede “child protection services sharing information relating to vulnerable children and their families”.

That is why for the past 12 months Mr Shannon and I have been engaging with Tusla, gardaí, the Department of Children and Youth Affairs (DCYA), and Minister Katherine Zappone to try to enhance the co-operation between these two bodies. Mr Shannon highlighted in his report a number of exemplary places where police and child protection Social Workers are co-located. Based on those recommendations, various representatives from DCYA, including Ms Zappone, gardaí, Tusla, the Department of Justice and Equality, the Department of Health and the Ombudsman for Children’s Office, have carried out fact finding missions to the Rowan Centre in Belfast, Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) in Oxford, England and the Child Advocacy Centre (CAC) in the Bronx, New York.

Ever wonder what goes on in a social work office? Patricia Finlay, Service Director for Dublin Mid Leinster explains what happens when we receive a child protection and welfare referral… pic.twitter.com/TH3yq1IXq8

— Tusla - Child and Family Agency (@tusla) April 10, 2018

Each co-located centre was inspiring in their account of how working in a child centred manner in the same location delivered much better supports for children. It was a not a simple step to take for any of the centres we visited but the three centres were adamant it worked better than they had hoped and much, much better than anything they had tried previously. The US National Children’s Alliance estimates that the CAC model achieves $1,000 savings per case compared to non-CAC approaches. The CAC model also provides significantly higher rates of coordinated

investigations and increased successful prosecution of child abuse perpetrators. Similar findings are noted for the other two centres.

The key barrier to this type of co-location, according to Tusla and the gardaí, has been various prohibitions on sharing information between the two agencies. It was for this reason that I worked with Mr Shannon and Ms Zappone to urge both organisations to commit to producing a paper which outlined a) the perceived legal and practice barriers to sharing information and b) the possible solutions to those barriers. Government has promised for many years to put our children ahead of our systems and now is the time to live up to that promise. By pushing ahead with changing our systems and procedures, and allowing information sharing, the value of each agency will be maximised by working with the other and we will greatly enhance the benefits for children at risk.

Operation Bullfinch was a turning point for police and social services in Oxfordshire and it led to a major enquiry where it was identified that there was a “professional tolerance to knowing young teenagers were having sex with adults”.

The operation led to a total rethink of how they manage child protection. On our visit to Oxford I heard one phrase which stood out for me — Dare to Share

This epitomised the new approach being taken in Oxfordshire — it is the opposite of how they made decisions previously but they live by that motto now. The police and the social workers look at child protection referrals together and each agency fully discloses all the information they have about the child/children in question and their family or known relatives.

This gives both parties a much clearer, 360-degree view of the circumstances pertaining in the family of the child at that time and therefore leads to a high quality assessment of what actions are needed to best protect that child. This model also encourages other agencies to engage more openly too, such as education welfare officers, school principals, the Probations Service, and medical personnel because the sharing of information is deemed to be appropriate in the context of child protection concerns.

This is the recommended direction for Ireland for many years, as seen in the fourth recommendation from the Ferns Report (2005) and followed up by an independent audit of services in Ireland in the National Review of Sexual Abuse Services for Children and Young People for the HSE (2011). The time is long past for considering recommendations — now it is time for action.

I would urge DCYA and the Department of Justice and Equality to work together to create a minimum of one co located centre across each of the 17 Community Health Organisations immediately.

I also recommend that they work quickly toward adding other relevant services such as therapy, the Educational Welfare Service, the Probation Service, juvenile liaison officers, and forensic medical services so that a child feels safe enough in one space to access all relevant services. Young victims of abuse deserve the best possible services with the shortest possible delay in accessing them.

Dr Niall Muldoon is the Ombudsman for Children