Youth workers uneducated on child protection
The study was carried out among more than 40 postgraduate students of nursing (most of whom already work in the profession), teaching and social work at National University of Ireland, Galway.
It found that while there is training on child protection, there is little consistency between programmes and many students are unclear even who the first person to contact should be in the case of suspected abuse.
Sinead Hahessy, a nursing lecturer at NUI Galway who co-authored the study, said the training provided varies enormously between third-level colleges and even internally between different departments.
“The findings explain how, in hospitals for example, there are so many different professions that sometimes a breakdown in communications is what leads to children falling between the cracks.
“It’s also down to staffing levels; if you don’t have enough people, follow-up work about concerns gets sidelined.
“The recent Roscommon neglect case is a prime example, where people do their best but children can go missing in the system along the way,” Ms Hahessy said.
Some participants in the study expressed a feeling of fear and personalisation when considering what action to take where there is cause for concern.
“This appeared to have significant impact on enacting procedural systems as participants acknowledged a sense of burden linked with fear of personal recrimination if their cause for concern was unfounded,” the research report said.
The Department of Health’s Children First guidelines on the reporting of suspected child abuse apply to people working in health, education and social work.
The Irish Primary Principals’ Network last month urged the introduction of a mandatory reporting system, which should be matched by a system of mandatory action by child welfare services to follow up such reports.
The authors of the study have recommended further funding to research the possibility of delivering common training of people from different professions in child protection, through an e-learning system which could also help reduce the costs of such training.
Ms Hahessy said one of the most concerning findings was that there was such a varied understanding of child protection procedures across different professional groups and mixed understanding of the role of different groups.
