Child Law Project: Boy was sent to hospital as no suitable social care place was available 

The child was a pre-teen who had been in the care system for seven months at the time of the admission. Picture: iStock

A child had to be admitted to a children’s hospital because there was no suitable social care placement for him, according to the latest batch of Child Law Project reports.

The child was a pre-teen who had been in the care system for seven months at the time of the admission.

He had been taken into care because of inappropriate interaction with his siblings.

The Child Law Project’s report said: “The solicitor said that the young boy had to be moved several times during the previous seven months, and the CFA [Tusla, the child and family agency] had not been able to get staff to work with him.

“He had become very disruptive over the previous weekend at the most recent residential unit, and he had cut himself while getting out of a window trying to escape the unit.

“The boy had been taken to hospital for treatment of his cut, but the management of the residential unit refused to take him back.”

He was being cared for in the hospital by private agency staff in a private room and was accompanied by a security guard when moving around the hospital.

He had been accepted as a social admission in the hospital.

The child, who was diagnosed with ADHD, was attending classes in the hospital. He was due to be expelled from his school.

His guardian ad litem told the court that the boy urgently needed a social care placement.

The guardian ad litem “said that there was every chance that the boy could reach his full potential in time but because he was in such an unstable situation, no therapies could start.”

When the case returned to court two weeks later, the boy was still in the hospital and was due to be moved two days later into an interim residential placement. However, a more appropriate placement was being sought.

The report outlined: “She [a social worker] said that the national placement team was making every effort and that the boy had priority, but that there were 241 children on the national placement team’s wait list.”

Shortage of disability-suited placements 

Meanwhile, another case highlighted in the volume of reports related to two young children on the autism spectrum whose mother had intellectual disabilities and their father had a chronic illness.

In their case, concerns were raised about a shortage of “disability-suited placements for children in care”.

Girl missing from State care for three days

In a third case, a 13-year-old girl, known as A, had gone missing from State care for four days.

The report said: “The court was told by the social worker that A had disclosed that she had sex with a boy of the same age during the time she was missing and that she had switched off her mobile phone to disable the location function.”

According to the Child Law Project, the issue of special care arrangements was at the centre of 17 cases, constituting one in six of the 106 reports.

It added: “In most instances, the child was in an unregulated special emergency arrangement, from which they frequently absconded, placing themselves at risk of criminality and sexual exploitation. Often these children had been deemed eligible for special care, but no place was available.”

More than 100 reports were published in the tranche from the Child Law Project, which is funded by the Department of Justice.

The reports featured cases that were before the Children’s Court earlier this year.