Children don’t feel safe in care units

THE HSE’s standards watchdog this week published four comprehensive reports on special care units where troubled teenagers are detained in order to provide them with therapeutic interventions.

The ongoing serious concerns outlined in the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) reports, unfortunately, are not surprising.

For a long time now there have been rumblings from Ballydowd in Dublin, Cork’s Gleann Alainn, and Coovagh House, Limerick.

Some of the rumblings have been high profile, such as the crisis at Ballydowd which was set to close following a damning HIQA report last year. It never did.

Others are stories that often cannot be verified. And when asked, the HSE says it cannot tell. It is not even possible to find out how many children are staying in a particular facility on a given week, for fear they might somehow be identified.

HIQA’s reports do tell us how many children are being detained where and when. So if HIQA can put the information into the public domain, why does the HSE hide behind legislation and pretend it can’t?

Once again, the culture of secrecy within the HSE has been shown up for what it is — a convenient way to stop the dissemination of important information. Information which will no doubt damage the HSE, and not the children in its care.

What we do know is that the children in these units are very damaged.

These are young people who have probably spent a lifetime in care, and are out-of-control and very difficult to manage.

In May this year, a care worker told a court that a girl assaulted her and three colleagues while under the influence of valium tablets at Coovagh House.

The HIQA report on Coovagh House confirmed there had been 49 assaults on staff over one year. It said there was “poor management of behaviour, severely depleted staffing and management levels and a lack of suitable training for staff”.

Children did not feel safe in the unit and presented as extremely challenging and engaged in serious risk-taking behaviour. Staff were not trained to carry out full restraints on children and minor disagreements escalated into serious events.

Inspectors also found the gardaí were called to help get children to go to their bedrooms at night.

It is disturbing that a young person placed in the care of — you would hope — the most highly qualified of staff, ends up facing criminal charges after being taken off the streets, presumably, to protect them from that very pitfall.

It is disturbing that these young people do not feel safe and cared for at these units — the very point of them. And it is highly disturbing that the HSE allows agency staff with less experience than HSE staff to work at these units.

With more and more children being admitted to these units it is incumbent on the HSE to put the very best properly trained and qualified staff, in place to deal with the most damaged of children.

Steps taken by the HSE to remedy what goes on in these units must continue to be monitored and scrutinised in a public way. And no doubt HIQA will be at the forefront of that scrutiny as the only independent body keeping an eye on what goes on behind these locked doors.