Specialised care - Nip troubled behaviour in the bud

The State is spending almost €30 million a year on specialised care for 72 disturbed young people. The main issue in relation to this should not be the cost, but whether proper treatment is being provided.

During 2006, almost €20,000 a week was spent on six children who were sent abroad for treatment that is not available in this country. A €5m special care unit has been closed for the past three years, and failed to re-open again last week in what was the latest in a succession of missed opening dates.

After Mr Justice Kelly of the High Court ruled in February 2000 that a number of non-offending children were inappropriately detained, a special care unit was opened in Coovagh House, Co Limerick, in November 2003. Although it was designed to cater for five boys, it only ever catered for three and the weekly cost of the unit was almost €50,000.

Coovagh House was closed again in April 2004 after one of the boys complained of inappropriate behaviour by members of staff. Following an internal investigation, “appropriate action” was taken in conjunction with the proper authorities, according to the Health Service Executive (HSE) but the findings of the investigation were never published.

Since then, the HSE has spent hundreds of thousands of euro in efforts to recruit qualified staff for the unit from as far afield as Canada.

It makes little sense spending so much money on futile searches rather than using that money to provide an attractive salary in the first place.

Another special care unit at Ballydowd, Co Dublin, is short of 15 staff, despite a continuous recruiting drive. It caters for 12 young people at a weekly cost of €126,096, while a third secure unit at Gleann Alainn, Co Cork, costs €44,615 a week for five young people.

The HSE is also spending more than €350,000 a week on 10 high-support units catering for 43 young people whose needs cannot be met in foster care or in residential centres.

Those high support units have only 67% occupancy, and the Social Services Inspectorate reported last year that a number of those units were substandard.

The special care units and high support units deal with 60 of the 72 children in specialised care, while the other 12 children are in outreach services. The HSE needs to develop a system to recognise the symptoms of troubled children before they require special or high security care, according to the chief inspector of the Social Services Inspectorate.

There is also a problem with after care. It is not good enough that some of those young people leave special units or high security care without aftercare plans. Young people with behavioural problems have very complex needs and require proper planning to ensure that they don’t become the problems of the future.

The HSE states that a National High Support Special Care Management team is currently reviewing services and expect to have “a strong strategic plan” in place in about 18 months.

They shouldn’t overwork themselves! This is an outrage — such a plan should have been in place years ago.

The HSE is dealing with troubled young people and there is no point in waiting until they grow up to deal with their specialised problems as adults.

It needs to act now.