Child services chief attacks culture at HSE

THE HSE’s new child services supremo has said the agency’s crisis intervention skills “lacked credibility” and also questioned whether current child death reviews were too broad.

Scotsman Gordon Jeyes, appointed in December as the HSE’s first national director of children and family services, also said the provision of aftercare should be obligatory, but also needed to be used where it was most required and where resources allowed.

Speaking about his new role, in which he will be a key player in the transfer of child protection from the HSE to a new agency as part of new Government plans, he said: “The buck stops with me.”

He said of the HSE, which has faced a series of problems regarding child protection in recent years: “The culture that I have seen was certainly one that was defensive.”

He said there was a need for greater accountability in child services, but maintained that while “processes and practices in Ireland are far too inconsistent” and some children had been failed, the vast majority did not struggle in the system.

The deaths of children known to care services are being examined retrospectively by the Child Death Group, and deaths that occur in the system now are being reviewed under HIQA guidelines.

Mr Jeyes said he understood why those guidelines were needed given the HSE’s lack of credibility on the issue, but said he questioned whether investigating deaths by natural causes or tragic accidents was necessary.

“The figures are not out of kilter with the countries in the United Kingdom,” he said, questioning why figures issued in the past by the HSE were published when they were obviously too low.

“The criteria set by HIQA is broader than in any other jurisdiction than I am aware of,” he said.

He also said he wanted to introduce a new category of “missing and in danger” children, while he also said he wanted to support but challenge social workers to achieve better results in a financial climate where “it is going to get worse before it gets better” and where “caseload is erratic and inconsistent”.

The Government plans to de-couple child protection from the HSE and place it with a new agency. Mr Jeyes said he expected clarity on the details of the changes “fairly rapidly”.

Mr Jeyes said he expected more stories to appear in future which indicated that the HSE had made mistakes in the past in some cases involving children, but that he expected every child to have a quality plan and a social worker or transition worker this year.

He added that changes were also needed to ensure that children who have committed a crime can be placed in special care.