At-risk children need a guardian by their side

Granting children better access to legal advocates in childcare cases should just be the start of reforming the entire family justice system, writes Freda McKittrick of Barnardos

ANDREA is 17 now. She has been in the care of the State for the last four years, in a residential aftercare setting that works very hard to meet her needs. Andrea functions as a seven-year-old.

That’s in part because Andrea’s childhood was unimaginable. From the age of two she suffered physical, emotional and sexual abuse of the most terrible kind, at the hands of her stepfather and other men, with the full knowledge of her mother. She was frequently denied food and locked outside of the house as a young child. She was told, again and again, that she would be found and killed if she ever told of the abuse.