Minister eager to ‘meet the needs of young people’
When told that Gordon Jeyes had said, in his personal view, that all but the most serious crimes should be expunged from a child’s criminal record on turning 18, there is a moment’s hesitation.
“I think 18 would probably be, you know, radical,” she says. “I do recognise that some very serious crimes are committed, and some young people end up in detention, very often they are very serious crimes.”
“Respect for the law is important to embed in young people.”
This is just one angle to the scenario where Irish children are placed in overseas care facilities. The minister — a former social worker who worked with young offenders in London in earlier days — would like the practice to stop, but admits she has to be “realistic”.
“In terms of misgivings, what I would say is I want to be the minister who oversees growth in number of places [in Ireland] so we can more readily meet the very complex needs of young people who have serious problems,” she says.
As minister for children since the last election, it’s no surprise that she emphasises the positive steps taken in recent times. She has stressed the importance of doubling the number of secure care places in this country — Freedom of Information documents show that the plan has been in gestation for some time.
A recent announcement regarding the extension of aftercare provision was also welcomed, but a casual chat with a social worker, or a guardian ad litem or legal counsel quickly disabuses you of the notion that the current system has rid itself of its historical baggage.
“At 18, kids still get support, young people still get support [in regular families], we know that’s the reality of ordinary family life,” the minister says. “I want to focus on children in care. One of the things I want to do is move to a cross-departmental protocol which I will be furthering this year, of an approach to children in care. Quite a number of departments have responsibility and I want to create a sensitivity across departments. I just want a greater awareness and that we do the best for these kids,” she says.
An entirely noble aim, but getting the message across might take time. The criticism previously levelled at the HSE was that, as the country’s health service covering everything from patients on A&E trolleys to missing X-rays, the care system was a long way down the priority list.
Would it be all that easy to convince other departments, local authorities and the rest to clue themselves in to the often unique needs of children who have spent time in the care system?
She believes it is essential. “What we could do is have a cross-departmental protocol in education, environment, in all the different departments about recognising the particular position of children in care, and that includes some of those children who have been in England,” she says.
“So you would have housing, there could be extra points to help you, to go through the departments. These young people probably should have a medical card. They probably deserve it, they probably are eligible anyway; access to disability services, whatever is needed,” she says.
Wouldn’t this be a costly exercise for a country that is quite obviously short of a few quid? As she sees it, this cross-departmental protocol for children in care, or charter, or “whatever you want to call it”, need not give the Department of Finance fresh nightmares.
“In loco parentis — what does a good parent do?” she asks. “The first step is awareness and I think policies could be changed. It’s not necessarily about money.” Asked if she thinks this new blueprint could be in place by the end of 2014, she replies: “I would hope so.”
One obvious problem is the scale of mental health services versus the demand — it’s not where it needs to be. “You have to think where we are coming from in terms of mental health facilities for teenagers and adolescents,” the minister says.
“It is really beyond belief that we haven’t had the specialist mental health in-patient facilities for teenagers and adolescents,” she says.
Department of Children and Youth Affairs policy development head Michele Clark mentions that plans are in place to build a forensic adolescent unit as part of the new adolescent mental health facility to be located in Portrane, and that this is at planning stage.
According to the minister: “If we don’t intervene properly these are the future residents of either mental health facilities or prisons, so it’s that serious, it deserves this attention and it’s getting it.”
She agrees with Gordon Jeyes’s view regarding the “lottery” of whether a teenager ends up on remand — typically racking up the criminal charges en route — or on the welfare side of the house in secure care, when the two frequently overlap. She sees more future co-operation between the Irish Youth Justice Service, which is affiliated to her department, and the new Child and Family Agency. “I think that’s where we’re going and I think it’s the right way to go.”
As for the possibility of increased inspection oversight regarding Irish children in out-of-state placements — by HIQA, for example — she says: “Once you make a placement in another state, providing it is delivering the services you want for the child, is of a high standard, is being seen as being of a high standard … that is probably the primary place where decisions are going to be made about the quality of care.
“But the ideal, really, and what we are doing in special care, what we want to oversee is a situation where we will have more places here, where we won’t have children going abroad unless it’s to very specialist facilities, which it is effectively at the moment.
“The plan is to have more secure care placements to meet the needs of Secure Care children in Ireland.”
She says not only are overseas placements a tiny fraction of the number of children in care, but also that not every child that enters care stays there for a long period.
The care system is often “a safety valve” allowing families to pull themselves together after a period of strife, she argues; what’s more, fewer children seem to be entering detention facilities, and garda diversion projects seem to be working.
And yet, problems remain, not least the struggles of many of those children, the admittedly small number of teenagers who spend a sizeable chunk of their young lives in a different country, and on their return to Ireland can face a peculiar choice: risk sticking around and falling in with the old crowd, or head back to the country that had taken them in. The third way — striking out on your own but at home — seems the hardest route.
Minister Fitzgerald and Michele Clarke say aftercare provision overseas is available, and is “based on the needs of a young person and can be fairly flexible.” But obviously it doesn’t always reach those who need it. As the minister says: “Can they be theoretically supported in the UK? Yes. Does it happen often enough? Probably not.
“These are Irish children, I want to see Irish services respond to them, but I have to be realistic. I would say we are going in the right direction, we are talking about a very small number of youngsters,” sher says.
An advocate of early intervention, with an increased focus on the under-fives, Mrs Fitzgerald is candid about the fact that, if there was a choice in the matter, no-one would start from here. “There is a huge element of catch up,” she says.
