Teens face jail as there are no care facilities

TROUBLED teenagers may have to be sent to jail because of a lack of services in residential care institutions.

Resident Managers Association chairman Andrew Meaney claimed that in one case in Co Wicklow, a teenager’s probation officer has recommended that he be jailed for past transgressions rather than face homelessness.

The teenager, who has spent years in care, also has an alcohol problem and turns 20 later this year. The possibility of a custodial sentence is one of the options being considered.

Mr Meaney said he was aware of a number of similar cases around the country.

“I am aware that the kid is leaving care, has nowhere (else to go) and all that’s left for the probation officer who is involved is to try and organise a custodial sentence to at least keep the kid off the street. I am aware of a number of these types of situations.”

Any sentence would be for damage to property while in care. The organisation had been happy “to let it slide”, said Mr Meaney, but might need to use evidence of it to organise a custodial sentence. “They need to be re-awoken by probation to try and provide some sort of accommodation for the young person.

“Someone with his emotional level of maturity would be very unsafe on the street. He is very vulnerable and quite at risk.”

He said the difficulty in finding aftercare services for the teen and others in a similar predicament was due in part to the reorganisation of the Health Services Executive. “The new officers are being appointed and there’s a delay at all levels in committing to any new developments,” he added.

A spokesman for the East Coast Area of the HSE said that while they could not comment on individual cases, the HSE did provide a range of aftercare services for youths who had been in care up to the age of 23.

A report by Focus Ireland in 2000 showed that 25% of young people who left the care of the health board and two-thirds of those who left special schools were either in prison or in a detention centre within two years.

Entitled Left Out On Their Own, it said 33% of people leaving health board care were or had been homeless within six months. In all, 68% had experienced homelessness within two years of leaving health board care. Under Section 45 of the 1991 Childcare Act, health boards “may provide aftercare for young people leaving care”.

Many youth work professionals say this wording allows health boards to view the provision of aftercare as optional.