Boy, 6, still in care overseas despite therapy ending

The case of a six-year-old boy in overseas residential care for the past three years, and who can not remember his siblings, is just one of a number of tragic cases highlighted by a project that looks at how and why children are taken into care.

In its second volume of case reports, released yesterday, the Child Care Law Reporting Project revealed an extension of the child’s placement had been granted even though his therapy ended late last year.

A solicitor for the HSE told the court the residential unit had said they had done what they could in relation to therapy with the child, who has attachment issues. The child’s father said there was concern regarding parental contact.

“He has no idea of a family,” the solicitor for the father said. The social worker explained how difficult it was to make contact with the parents after the child went to the other jurisdiction. There were issues of homelessness, opiate use and imprisonment.

Regarding the child recommencing therapy, the social worker told the court that the form of therapy best suited to the child had to be decided upon. It would then continue in Ireland when he returned. “It’s very serious to move a six-year-old boy out of the jurisdiction,” the guardian ad litem (appointed by the court to protect the child’s interests) said. The child had only been back to Ireland once in three years. The court was told there was “nowhere to bring the child to at the minute”.

A review was listed concerning the child’s welfare. The order was granted to extend the placement for the coming months.

Other tragic cases included that of a week-old infant taken into care while still in the maternity hospital. Her mother was a drug addict and had been living in homeless accommodation but discharged herself, leaving the baby behind in hospital. The HSE did not know where she had gone. An older child was already in care.

Another case involved an African teenager left alone in Ireland by her mother, who wrote to her school principal asking him to find someone to look after her.

The court heard the girl had been left by her mother in a house with two men she did not know. Following the report to the HSE by the school principal, she was taken into foster care.

She told her guardian ad litem, who told the court, that she was relieved the full care order proceedings were taking place which would make her foster care arrangements permanent. The girl had also written to the judge expressing her views. The judge made a care order until she was 18.

CCLRP director Carol Coulter said often the underlying causes that gave rise to child care proceedings were poverty and educational disadvantage, which in turn may lead to alcohol and drug abuse, domestic violence and poor mental health.

“When you combine poor mental health with issues such as drug and alcohol abuse, you can see they feature in many of the cases,” said Dr Coulter.