A long way to go to truly protect our children

MINISTER Frances Fitzgerald states that the last 10 posts of the required 270 social work posts will be filled by the end of the year.

Whereas this is heartening news, how can we be sure that 270 is even near an adequate amount given that case over-loading is one of the causes of burn-out leading to frequent and/or long-term illness, or case workers seeking employment elsewhere?

The two previous governments should have ensured that those 270 posts were filled years ago, as there was no embargo on the recruitment of social workers. Furthermore, Ms Fitzgerald has found that the HSE had been placing young inexperienced social workers “on the frontline”, and the minister correctly declared this practice to be dangerous.

I wonder if the minister is aware that under the previous government the HSE sent student social workers on term-time placement not as “shadowing” trainees, but alone as if they were salaried employees, to do a major piece of the statutory requirement, the children’s interviews for annual statutory reviews?

Why should it be left to foster carers to object to this practice, and to insist that the students be accompanied, at the very least, and that optimally, they should only shadow? Even if the quality of the unaccompanied student’s work was good, why should a child in care have to admit their innermost feelings about their placement to a complete stranger, who may only look as old as the child in care, if s/he is a teenager?

Then that student walks back out of the child’s life again. Where is the relationship-building, where are the boundaries and how does this affect what children as they wonder who knows what about them, and why?

As a GP commented recently, would a medical student be sent out alone on house calls? Child protection was never a top priority for the last two governments, even pre-2007 when there was money to burn. Recruitment is necessary and admirable, but shaky if not to the scale for optimising retention.

These issues are paramount if Ireland truly wants to protect children and enhance their lives.

Michele Savage

Glendale Park

Dublin 12