Care system crisis-led and dumbed down, says expert

The organiser of a major conference on the care of children has said the care system has been "dumbed down" and those working with children are not properly resourced or valued.

Maurice Fenton, a social care worker and organiser of the four-day Unity through Relationship conference held in Dublin, said Irish childcare was still “crisis-led” and the new Child and Family Agency needed to follow through on making aftercare a statutory provision so as to signal its “intent” to improve the delivery of services.

Mr Fenton said that the falling numbers of children in residential care — and the corresponding rise in the number of children in foster care — did not necessarily mean children were receiving appropriate services, particularly children who he said were too traumatised to be cared for in a foster placement.