At-risk children need a guardian by their side
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.
To this day, she lives in fear of her stepfather finding her. She has been diagnosed, among other things, with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This impacts on her cognitive and emotional functioning, as Andrea is having to cope with intrusive thoughts, a high level of anxiety and a pervasive fear.
There is a plan for her future when she turns 18 that involves a safe residential facility where she will be properly cared for and supported. Since she came into care, Andrea has had a guardian ad litem at her side, appointed by the court. The guardian ad litem worked with Andrea and her social workers to ensure that the court was fully aware of the harm that Andrea had suffered, and to stress that it was important she could not have contact with her parents due to the trauma and abuse she had encountered. The guardian ad litem worked closely with Andrea as she came close to her 17th birthday as the court wanted to be satisfied as to the aftercare arrangements for her, given her vulnerability.
That’s what guardians ad litem, known as GALs, do. They’re appointed by the courts to make sure that young and vulnerable people have a voice in court when life-changing decisions are being made about them. They advise the courts about the wishes and needs of young people, and they seek to represent the interests of young people in the highly stressful atmosphere of a court.
The first guardians were appointed in the UK after the death of a little girl called Maria Colwell in 1974. She had been discharged from care by a court and sent home to an abusive parent, without any independent view of her needs being given to the court. It is routine in the UK now for every child to have a guardian, but the system wasn’t introduced to Ireland until 1995, and it is still the case that guardians are only appointed in about half the cases where children are facing life-changing decisions in front of a court.
The core of the guardian’s work is their relationship with children. It has to be professional at all times, but it is not a therapeutic relationship. It has to be sufficiently close to build trust to allow the child to openly discuss their wishes and feelings, yet not foster a dependency. It does not and cannot replace the child’s relationship with their social worker, who is the most significant person in their care journey, and who will remain after all court proceedings have gone. The guardian’s relationship with the child has to be measured and proportionate. The guardian needs to have a thorough knowledge of child development and welfare, and the impact of trauma on children and their capacity to form and maintain healthy relationships.
Despite that obvious need, the system has grown up in Ireland on a pretty ad hoc basis. The organisation I work for, Barnardos, employs about half the guardians, and has a rigorous code of standards and practice. But it is technically possible for anyone to offer themselves as a guardian — there is nothing in the law that even requires them to be vetted, let alone operate to minimum standards. And there are serious question marks around the cost of the system — a cost that must be borne by Tusla, alongside its already very stretched role in keeping children safe and providing for their welfare.
I believe passionately that every child being taken into the care system should have a right of access to someone who can speak for them and them alone, someone whose expertise and judgement will be valued by the courts and the social work teams alongside who they work.
I’ve argued for years that we need a system which is much less adversarial, much better managed, and where people can work alongside each other with one aim in mind — the best possible outcome for the child.
Securing best outcomes often involves juggling resources and priorities, and a collaborative approach is going to be much better at that than a legal battle is. But sometimes battle is necessary, if the interests of the child demand that.
There’s now a bill in preparation to reform and regulate the entire system, and that’s really welcome. It needs to ensure that every child who needs access to a guardian has that access as a right, and the bill is not yet strong enough in that sense.
The head of Tusla, Fred McBride, talks about the “jagged edge” between the privacy of family life and state interference in order to protect children. The guardian works right within that space, in our adversarial, often conflictual courts system.
So while we’re changing the guardian system, to provide better and more value-for-money representation of children’s rights, we need to push on with other reforms too. Our child and family justice systems remain too legalistic, too adversarial, too frightening. We shouldn’t stop at reforming one area, when by working together we can get it right for all children.
Case study: Sally was found at night, shaking with fear
Sally’s mum had alcohol and drug problems and placed Sally into care when she was a toddler after the death of her dad. Her mother initially seemed to have tackled her problems and Sally was returned to her care when she was four and the case was closed. There was no guardian ad litem (GAL) involvement at this time.
When she was six, Sally was found alone outside a shop, late at night, cold, shaking and hardly able to talk. Her mum’s addiction had spiralled out of control. She had abandoned Sally, who was taken into care and later made subject to a care order to the age of 18. She went back to the same foster carers as she had been with as an infant. Sally’s mum turned up to see her on and off. Sally was always devastated when her mum was supposed to come but let her down.
Sally did well initially. However, she stopped attending school, and started to self-harm when she was 12 and absconded with unknown males when she has 13. Her foster care placement broke down when Sally was 14 and she went into residential care. Her foster carers still kept in touch with her but they could not cope with her increasingly risky behaviours. They said later that whatever had gone on between the ages of four and six had caused severe damage to Sally and she never really recovered.
Sally made numerous attempts to kill herself and was hospitalised on adult psychiatric wards. She took drugs and extreme risks with her behaviours. Her social worker, who had known her for many years, made the decision to apply for detention for her own welfare in a special care unit for her when she was 16. Sally was placed in a special care unit centre far from her home town.
A Barnardos guardian ad litem (GAL) was appointed when Sally went into special care under a High Court order. The GAL met her at the unit but Sally rejected all attempts to talk to her.
Initially, Sally struggled while in special care. She continued to self-harm, even though the environment was as safe as it could be. On one occasion she nearly died after an attempt to take her own life. The only way she could access psychiatric care was to be taken to the local A&E. This put her at higher risk. She spent most of her time away from all other young people, in an empty corridor, for several days.
The GAL brought the matter to the High Court to explain what was going on. She raised the lack of access to psychiatric care for this young person in crisis, and the long periods where Sally was kept in isolation. As a direct result, Tusla and the HSE negotiated that on-site psychiatric cover would be provided to the unit to support them with Sally’s care.
Slowly, Sally recovered from her crisis and started to trust the care workers and therapeutic team looking after her, and her Barnardos GAL. She opened up about the very serious abuse she had suffered when she was a young child. She stopped self-harming, and started to think positively about her future.
When it came for Sally to leave special care, despite the best effort of the social work team, there was a shortage of placements, and the one proposed for her was not suitable – everyone working with Sally knew this. The GAL brought her own concerns to the attention of the court, and sought evidence from the social work team about the suitability of the placement. It became obvious that there was no point in pursuing the arrangement that had been proposed as it would not meet Sally’s needs.
A different placement was found near the special care unit.Sally was reluctant to accept this placement as it was so far from her home area. The GAL visited the placement with Sally and asked her to think about going to the placement on a short term basis, and reassured her that she would not be forgotten about. Sally accepted this reassurance from her GAL as she saw her as ‘outside the system’ and she made the move successfully.The guardian negotiated additional outreach support from the special care unit and Sally was able to continue school there and complete her Junior Certificate successfully.The GAL visited Sally regularly at the new placement and kept her informed of progress. Sally did very well at this placement and it did her good to be away from the pressures of her home area after leaving Special Care. However, she still wanted to return to her home area.
Six months before her 18th birthday, Sally transferred to a specialist aftercare placement close to her home area and near her former foster carers. The GAL had previous knowledge of the care team and was able to introduce them to Sally to help her transitionThe GAL negotiated that this placement would be available to Sally well beyond her 18th birthday to help give her a sense of security and stability as she prepared for adulthood.Sally had many people working with her who helped her, especially her social worker who had known her for many years and who gave her immense support. However the Barnardos GAL was in the unique position of being able to challenge the care arrangements when necessary, and ensure that gaps were filled in order that Sally’s care experience had the best outcome possible. Sally felt that she had an independent advocate on her side.
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