Publications and Press Releases
“The Blame Game” written by Catherine Shanahan in the Irish Examiner on Saturday, November 26, 2011

“The Roscommon abuse case rocked the nation. The social workers who helped get the case to court were in no way prepared for the backlash against them, writes Catherine Shanahan

IT was January 22 2009, just two days after the arrival in style to the White House of a couple that symbolised hope at a time when world headlines were mired in financial predictions and most of us were happy to embrace a good news story.

But while the Obama feelgood factor continued to fill newspaper inches and Michelle’s outfits dominated frontpage images, a disturbing story was quietly unfolding in a Roscommon court room.

This story, within hours, took precedence here over any other, blowing the lid, as it did, off one of the few remaining taboos in Irish society: women and sexual abuse, mothers and incest.

For the first time in Irish legal history, a mother was convicted of incest and sentenced to the maximum seven years imprisonment on 10 counts of incest, sexual abuse and neglect of her six children. The offences took place at the family home in Co Roscommon over a six year period, at a time when her children, then aged six to 15, were regularly abused and beaten, frequently went hungry, lived in squalid conditions, suffered poor personal hygiene, and in short, endured the kind of nightmare lives few of us can thankfully imagine.


There was uproar in the wake of the court case. The question on everyone’s lips was how had this happened in the context of a family known to the then Western Health Board (WHB) since the birth of their first child in 1989, when a neighbour told a public health nurse she had concerns about the parents’ alcohol consumption and the mother herself told the same nurse that she wasn’t aware she was in labour, having drank 11 vodkas the evening before the birth?
What had gone so disastrously wrong within a care system supposed to protect children that it took until 2004 for all the children to be finally taken into care despite a recognition of the ongoing neglect among social care and health care professionals? The Report of the Inquiry Team set up to examine the events surrounding the Roscommon Childcare Case provides an insight. It found that while the WHB did recognise the neglect and, on occasions, emotional abuse of the children, it failed to follow up the decisions taken by the child protection management team in a manner that offered the children better protection.

There was a belief, badly mistaken in hindsight, that with the appropriate social work and health care support, the parents could meet the needs of their children.

This was reinforced at times by the different impressions formed by the personnel who visited the family home over a 15-year period, some of whom found intermittent improvements, and some of whom didn’t; by a general lack of consensus on the nature of the danger that the children were or weren’t in (due in part to a relatively high turnover of people who worked directly with the family).

And, when it finally came to the point that the WHB was considering legal action to take the children into care, they were blindsided by the mother, who went to the High Court ahead of them and obtained an injunction restraining the WHB from removing any of the children from her custody.

This action, which took place in 2000, had, the report said, a very significant impact on the social work service with one worker telling the inquiry it "disabled us from acting on our responsibilities under the Child Care Act".

The unfortunate upshot of this intervention, compounded by "a prevailing belief" that the legal threshold for proof of neglect was very difficult to meet, was a further delay in taking the children into care, a task not completed until October 2004, and only after allegations were made by one of the children concerning physical and sexual assault by their father, after which a statement was provided to gardaí. On March 5 2010 their father — "Mr A" — was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment following his conviction on 47 counts of rape and sexual assault. By then, we, the wider public, were aware that the woman known only as "Mrs A" had committed the unthinkable; that her children, in their short lives, had suffered the unspeakable in a home where food shopping was regularly sacrificed for the sake of keeping the parents in alcohol, where young children, regularly infested with head lice, were left alone babysitting siblings or taken to the pub for the afternoon, where heating and vermin were an issue, and where, in short, children were denied their most basic rights and needs for security, food, warmth, clothing, and the loving care of their parents.

To top it all, some were subjected to sexual abuse.

Few would argue with Mary Harney’s take on the case — as then minister for health and children, she described it as probably the most appalling case of abuse she had ever read.

The public reaction was instant and predictable when details of the case first emerged. The mood was one of outrage — find out who was responsible, mete out appropriate punishment and immediately put safe guards in place to ensure the mistakes made in this case could never be repeated.

Politicians reacted in line with public expectation, an inquiry was ordered, and inevitably, the finger of blame was pointed at the personnel who for years had worked with the family and now stood accused of failing the children spectacularly. When the findings of the inquiry were published on October 27, 2010, it was difficult to see how staff on the ground could be absolved of blame. The report concluded that had there been better insight and understanding of the condition and needs of the children, the likelihood is they would have been offered protection much sooner.

Last month, almost exactly a year to the day since the report of that inquiry was published, University College Cork (UCC) hosted a child protection and welfare social work conference — on October 28 — at which some of the key personnel involved in the Roscommon case outlined their own traumatic version of events.

This was at a workshop held for the benefit of student and qualified social workers for the purpose of exploring the impact of an inquiry process on the social work team and wider childcare services. It was not for the purpose of discussing specific details of the case.

Those invited to speak thought long and hard about doing so, professing themselves to be "still healing, still raw" and still dealing with the fallout. Eventually they decided to accept the invitation in the hope that others in the profession would benefit and learn from their experience.

It is the only time those involved in the inquiry have spoken publicly, which, it emerged, took a substantial toll on many individual professionals, among them Martina McGrath, principal social worker in Roscommon since 2002.

For Martina, January 22, 2009 dawned with the promise that finally a woman who had behaved in a heinous fashion towards her children would, after years of work in getting the case to court, be brought to justice. Not only that, but the lid would finally and justifiably be blown off the fallacy held by wider society that women do not abuse, or that mothers never abuse their offspring.

From this perspective, Martina looked forward to the court case. It was time the wider community recognised that women do abuse children.

The downside, she knew, would be the media frenzy that ensued with everyone digging, she believed, to find out more about the children. Her focus therefore, and that of her colleagues, was on affording the children maximum protection and ensuring they were ready for whatever came in the aftermath. What she was not prepared for was the intense scrutiny she and her co-workers were subjected to.

"Our total priority going into court around the sentencing of the first woman who was sentenced for sexually abusing her children was making sure that the children and the foster carers were ready for any publicity that came out of that," Martina says.

"Staff were secondary to it. We had prepared the children, we had prepared the family. And I suppose going to the court at that time, I was extremely proud of the work that had been done by an overstretched and under-resourced team, in (a) bringing these children into care and (b) getting them to tell their stories.

"So walking into the court after about year and a half of anxiety, I knew we had the children in pretty secure places, receiving therapeutic support, and we had helped them tell their story.

"I suppose the two things I hoped for from what was happening was that there would be a recognition that women do abuse and that children within families, and not just within institutions, within families in Ireland, are being abused all of the time.

"I thought it was great when we got the conviction. It certainly put us on the map."

The sentencing of the mother "hit a frenzy of media publicity that was unimaginable", Martina says, and all of sudden, the tables turned on the social workers.

"It [the frenzy] was a bit about the mother who had abused. It was a bit about the society and the community and the school who had allowed this happen, but very quickly the people who everybody loves to, not to hate, but to blame, are the social workers. The mother was sentenced on Thursday January 22 and the following day, myself and Paddy Gannon were called to a meeting" [by Health Service Executive (HSE) management].

Martina arrived at that meeting with "every file that existed on the family because we had nothing to hide," she says.

She went in thinking it was her chance to get more resources for childcare and social work services in Roscommon.

"We knew there were gaps in services, I have 40 letters documented looking for resources, to resource that specific area in Roscommon. I said ‘Right, I’m going in now, I’m getting my chance to explain myself’. So I suppose when I went in, I went in naively and I met with a corporate person within the HSE who carried out an initial review [of the case] and that initial review launched what was the Roscommon Inquiry. I suppose going in there, I wasn’t aware of what was coming," Martina says.

Paddy Gannon, childcare manager in Roscommon from 1996 until his retirement in March this year, says in the week after the story broke, most of his time was taken up with "trying to defend the fact that we hadn’t withheld information; that this had been flagged, but somehow hadn’t got through the organisation".

Social workers in Roscommon felt isolated. A senior official in the HSE phoned Paddy to hear his side of the story, and said he had planned to call and see him but was advised to stay away.

"Support by the agency [the HSE], the immediate agency in Roscommon, I would say, was mixed, because the anxiety was pushed down from the top and it certainly came down to us and it wasn’t being managed."

There was a request from the minister for children for an immediate report on the matter the day after the court case.

"There was nobody able to say ‘Hang on a minute now, we’re not going to be able to get that report by this evening at 5 o’clock because we are actually in the middle of a crisis here’.

"In fact the minister mightn’t have needed it ‘til Question Time the following Tuesday, and we’d know that, but that wasn’t the issue, the pressure was always ‘you must do it’. We felt in some sense bullied. I know it’s a strong word, but I think there was a sense of being bullied in the process that wasn’t very helpful."

Support from colleagues around the country was there, but Paddy felt corporate HSE was afraid to come near them "out of fear, or anxiety or embarrassment or whatever it was, but it appeared the best thing to do was stay away".

"Everybody, even more so people above me rather than below me, seemed to be struggling and paralysed with anxiety, there was panic all over the place. Panic about ‘Are there other cases like this?’. In the first meeting we went to, the first meeting in the initial review, the message quite clearly from the top was ‘Heads are going to roll here. Careers are over for some in the HSE’."

Paddy believes this pattern of keeping workers involved in the case at a distance continued throughout the inquiry process.

"It wasn’t a partnership, it was more an interrogation than a conversation, it was quite adversarial in a lot of ways. That lack of support set the tone...the corporate support wasn’t there."

Martina says the hardest part of the process for her was the impact it had both emotionally and professionally.

"My lasting memory around this would be, that when the decision was taken two days after the court case to hold an inquiry, Paddy rang me at home that Saturday evening at 5.45pm to tell me.

"So the six o’clock news came on, our director was on the news talking about the inquiry, the terms of reference were set, the inquiry team was set, and the staff on the ground — I was furiously ringing people who had heard it on the news. I suppose that set a tone that began to frighten us just a little bit."

On Monday all files were taken up by the general manager. "I suppose there was a frenzy within the organisation," Martina says. "The next week was really really difficult for workers on the ground trying to mind the children and family, and us trying to mind the HSE, and there was a trawl of any other case that might in any way cause adverse publicity in Roscommon. That was the concentration, so I suppose at that stage we were torn in a lot of different directions."

Martina was still, at this time, welcoming the inquiry. "I went into meetings and I said ‘I welcome the inquiry. I believe it will highlight many of the deficits that we have been highlighting for years in Co Roscommon, in how to practice in families, in the resources that are needed to practice in families, and also, in my head thinking ‘We’ve done a really good job with these children’."

However, anxiety soon set in. It was very clear, Martina says, that the inquiry team was focusing on individuals, that everyone involved would give their own statement before being invited for interview. She would have preferred a more collaborative approach where personnel involved in providing a service to the family could sit down in a group and highlight the gaps. For instance there was no targeted family support service in that specific area in Co Roscommon. Instead the WHB relied largely on home helps to provide this service, whose specific role was to deal with older people in the community. In addition, during the period in question, there were no written nationally agreed standards for childcare and workers were unclear of the benchmark against which their performance would be measured by the inquiry team. Martina was concerned the case might not be looked at in context.

She was also concerned that because it was focused on a single case, all the positive achievements of social workers and childcare staff during the timeframe would be overlooked.

Eventually, because of the individual nature of the inquiry, the unions were brought on board. "People found it very arduous, people felt that they were individually held to blame when they went in (for interview) and people came out of that and some required long term leave," Martina says. Her own interview took four hours. "It was tough, you’re remembering back years of work and you’re sitting there as an individual, so it was tough."

A number of months later, each participant in the inquiry was furnished with a draft of sections relevant to them as individuals. Martina commented on each of these because she did not believe they accurately reflected what she wanted to say and that they failed to capture the reality of working in Roscommon in that particular period. Her comments were not included in the final report.

The report was published in October 2010 following an application to the High Court by the HSE. Martina says they [workers on the ground] were adverse to its publication because of the impact they felt it would have on the children. Unsurprisingly, many of those who worked with the family were crucified.

"We were vilified," Martina says. "We were vilified in January 2009 as social workers. We had hoped the report would show the context in which we worked, the lack of resources we worked with, our huge efforts, for years, to improve services in Roscommon, but that wasn’t recognised."

Paddy says they were "hearing things that were totally untrue and our agency was ignoring them". "There was nobody saying ‘That’s not right or accurate or there’s another side to the story. You were left there, defenseless, disempowered and I suppose that’s a word that would sum up how we felt for a period of time."

Martina found out the report had been published when her sister texted her to say she was reading it on the internet. She hadn’t been given a copy.

"And I suppose that was the most difficult part. We hadn’t seen the recommendations. We hadn’t seen the conclusion, I had no clue what was coming out in it. If you were a social worker in Roscommon, you were crucified."

Caroline Duignan, training officer in childcare, Roscommon, says the impact the report had on them is reflected in a quote by Dr Helen Buckley, senior lecturer at Trinity College Dublin’s School of Social Work and Social Policy. "She said if one tracks cases where children have been killed, taken into care, or are victims of abusive behaviour, some reference to the culpability of the child protection professionals involved will be found, almost as if they had committed the assault themselves.

"Rarely are there positive or protective interventions or the many children whose safety and welfare they have secured given any profile. And that’s what we feel."

These days, Caroline finds herself wary at times about openly admitting her profession. "Some times, in some company, I’m nearly afraid to say I’m a social worker. We do have an important job to do, and I think that it would be very helpful to have a debate around the very positive and really important work that we do. We need to have that highlighted more instead of the stuff that goes wrong."

Martina says there were times when part of her questions if she would have the stomach to push for a prosecution again, but at the end of the day she knows the answer is an overwhelming "Yes".

"Of course it was worth it, it put child protection on the map, it put the fact that women abuse on the map, of course it was worth it. And there was learning in it.

"Were there gaps in services? Yes, there were massive resource issues in Roscommon. Did people do their best? The majority of them did, with limited resources."

Caroline says their decision to speak about their experience at the UCC conference was because they didn’t want anyone afraid of being a social worker, or being afraid of doing their job.

"We want to give advice the best way we can in terms of how we would hope that what we went through wouldn’t happen to anybody else.

"And because of the structures that are now in place that weren’t even in place when the inquiry started, we don’t feel that anybody in the room would go through a similar process." These structures include a systematic way of completing reviews of serious incidents, including deaths, of children in the care of the state, drawn up the independent health watchdog, the Health Information and Quality Authority. HIQA requires all serious incidents, including a case of suspected or confirmed abuse involving a serious incident to a child known to the HSE or a HSE-funded service — be reported to it within 48 hours. Overall, Caroline believes social workers now operate in safer and more supportive environment, helped by a new induction policy for newly qualified social workers "that recognises they can’t be handed a whole heap of files and told ‘there you go’." Both she and Martina emphasise the crucial need for maintaining up-to-date files. Martina says her experience from the inquiry was "If it’s not written it does not count".

Another conference speaker, Professor Sue Hill, professor of social work at the University of Birmingham, criticised the inquiry’s "pre-occupation with failing to record information" as well as its individual focus. She believes such reviews should be systems-based.

"I think it’s shocking actually, the way the inquiry was conducted," she says. "This preoccupation with failing to record information — while it’s very important to keep records, it’s rarely the casual factor when things go wrong. What people never do, and the Roscommon experience illustrates it, is look at how many cases that did not end up badly."

Paddy believes most people who were subject to the inquiry are suffering in various ways.

"You could call it post-traumatic stress. But people are getting on with their lives and their jobs.

"I suppose the best way to describe it is like somebody asking you, after you’ve been hit by a train ‘Are you ok?’ You carry that with you, you do get battered from all sides and then you are expected to get up and go on."

Paddy says the history of childcare in Ireland is that it has only been developed through crisis. "It’s always political, always competing forces for resources, competing forces for attention.

"And there are interests that emerge when the institution becomes bigger than the child and I think that’s a key challenge in any institution or organisation — does the HSE become bigger than a child’s need? Does a new agency (proposed for 2014) that takes over the role of child protection and welfare from the HSE become bigger than a child’s need? In some ways, it’s the same as the organisations of the past — the perpetuation of roles becomes more important than the actual protection of the child. And those are the challenges we face."

CHILD CARE REFERRALS

Child Abuse

According to Children First 2011, (national guidance for the protection and welfare of children), child abuse can be categorised into four different types

* neglect

* emotional abuse

* physical abuse

* sexual abuse

A child may be subjected to one or more forms of abuse at any given time.

Child Welfare

Welfare cases concern children who have been identified as not receiving adequate care and attention; and whose health or wellbeing may be significantly impaired without the provision of social support. Cases may be categorized as welfare if the immediate safety of the child is not compromised but the apparent concerns have a low to moderate impact on the child. The cumulative effect of low to moderate harm may ultimately lead to significant harm.

Referrals to Child Care Services in Roscommon

2009: Abuse: 677

Welfare: 462

2010: Abuse: 251

Welfare: 503

2011: Figures not yet available.

THE PEYTON REPORT

A Review of Practice and Audit of the Management of Cases of Neglect in Roscommon, ordered by the Roscommon inquiry team and completed in March but not yet published, is expected to reflect more favourably on the work of social workers and child care personnel in the area. Carried out by independent child care specialist Lynne Peyton, it is understood the report found a reasonable structure to case files and relatively accessible essential information on families as well as evidence of good capacity for interviewing and engaging with children. However challenges are believed to include inconsistent standards of recording information across child care teams. Among its national recommendations are a need for mechanisms to audit the standard of practise and to ensure there are multidisciplinary teams focused on childcare and childcare issues at local level.”


Read more: http://www.examiner.ie/ireland/the-blame-game-175092.html#ixzz1kOJGaXYv

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/crime/house-of-horrors-social-workers-vilified-175169.html -
 
Articles - Jennifer Hough & Eugene McCarthy (Irish Examiner)

For your information, see below an article from Jennifer Hough, Irish Examiner on Friday 6th January, 2012, and a response from Eugene McCarthy, Irish Examiner on 10th January 2012 (see attached): -

http://irishexaminer.com/ireland/social-workers-urged-to-take-care-in-abuse-cases-179172.html

Social workers urged to take care in abuse cases

By Jennifer Hough

Friday, January 06, 2012

SENDING an army of young women out to deal with horrific situations even gardaí find difficult could have devastating consequences, it has been warned.

Dr Helen Buckley, chairwoman of the HSE’s review panel for serious incidents and child deaths, said we could not escape the fact that social workers are generally young women and that recent high-profile abuse cases have shown what can happen when you have such a system.

"We are sending out an army of young women to deal with situations that even the gardaí would have trouble dealing with. So what can you expect?"

Dr Buckley said there could be issues of women being controlled by someone who is an abuser, but it was a bigger issue when others in power turned their back and scapegoated social workers when things go wrong.

The co-author of the Ferns report said social workers needed to be more aware of their statutory function.

"It’s not just that the law is on their side, it’s that they are legally obliged to protect children. Under the Childcare Act, the HSE is required to act in best interests of a child, and social workers are legally required to implement this. They have the authority and this needs to be understood. They can tell parents where to draw the line, they can say ‘that’s enough’ and should invoke the law in a more coercive way."

Parents’ constitutional protection should not make a difference to social workers, she said.

Dr Buckley reiterated her concerns around imminent new laws around mandatory reporting.

"It cannot be seen as the solution to all of our problems. In the high-profile cases we have seen in recent times, there has been no evidence that it has been down to a lack of reporting — it’s the lack of response that has been the issue.
"We must be careful not to believe that mandatory reporting will solve everything. It sounds good but it may result in over reporting, and will take away from actually responding. It will result in more paperwork and red tape and could work to weaken the ability of the HSE to deal with the cases they know about."

She said the HSE’s inquiry into the Galway abuse case where a mother and father were both convicted for heinous crimes against their own children will be as comprehensive as that into a case in Roscommon concerning abuse carried out over 15 years.

The report will probably not be ready until the third quarter of next year, she said.

The abuse was first brought to the attention of the health authorities in 2000 but continued for another nine years. The father was recently jailed for life for the horrific abuse of four of his daughters. He is already serving a sentence for the abuse of another of his daughters.

The mother was jailed for eight years last July for eight sample charges of neglect and cruelty to her children over a seven year period.

Read more: http://irishexaminer.com/ireland/social-workers-urged-to-take-care-in-abuse-cases-179172.html#ixzz1juXh9cBN
 
IASW response to Breda O'Briens Article - Irish Times 26/Nov

Please find below a letter the association sent to Breda O’Brien (Irish Times) responding to her article in the Irish Times on Saturday 26th November and comments made during the "Tonight with Vincent Browne" Program on TV3 on Tuesday 22nd November 2011.    

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2011/1126/1224308182340.html   - click here to view Ms O’Brien’s article.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Dear Ms OBrien, 

I am writing on behalf of the Irish Association of Social Workers (IASW) in relation to your article in the Irish Times of Saturday 26th November 2011 and a comment made during the "Tonight with Vincent Browne" Program on TV3 on Tuesday 22nd November 2011.  

During the TV3 program the following comment was made: "that according to an official report, that can be found on the Department of Children's website, social workers were reluctant to report colleagues". Vincent Browne moved the discussion on by saying that that was part of normal human behaviour and changed back to the original discussion. The comment was not qualified further but because of the context of the discussion suggested a connection between the deliberate cover up of clerical sexual abuse and the behaviour of social workers.   

In the article in the Irish Times, the comment that, "according to official reports social workers are reluctant to report colleagues" is repeated and the impression that social workers are guilty of covering up abuse of children by colleagues is given again due to  the context of the article. This impression is made more explicit in the statement "whatever the motivation, the end result is the same. If you cover up for a colleague, children are still left exposed to intolerable risk" and again in the next paragraph which states: "Why do we excuse social workers who protect colleagues and excoriate bishops who protect colleagues".   

The IASW is not aware of any evidence to suggest that social workers are guilty of covering up abuse of children by colleagues. Without a source for the statement that "social workers are reluctant to report colleagues" it is difficult to review the context of the statement or to address it in anyway. The IASW has tried to find the source of the statement, but have been unable to do so. 

The article is based on unverifiable statements/comments and makes allegations about the behaviour of social workers and casts doubts over the integrity of the social work profession. The IASW understands that it may not have been the intention to create that impression with the article, but unfortunately that has been the result. We would welcome if you could address the issue raised above at your earliest convenience.   

 
 
35 children in contact with HSE died over last 18 months

CARL O'BRIEN Chief Reporter - http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2011/1019/1224306075192.html

THE HEALTH Service Executive has pledged to improve child protection services following reports which show up to 35 young people who were known to social services have died over the past 18 months.

Most young people died from natural causes, followed by suicide, accidents and drug overdoses. The deaths include children who were known to social services or previously had contact with child protection services. Only three children were in the care system at the time of their death.

The National Review Panel – a group established by the HSE to investigate all deaths and serious incidents of children in care – has found that the inaction of the HSE was not directly linked to any deaths.

However, the independent chair of the group, Dr Helen Buckley of Trinity College Dublin, criticised the HSE for numerous failures which led to sub-standard care in some cases.

She said the HSE was responsible for failing to have a standardised method to assess the needs of children and young people who come to the attention of social services.

There was a lack of co-operation and communication between different agencies responsible for providing services to children at risk.

In addition, she said pressure on frontline social work services meant they were unable to respond quickly to many child welfare referrals.

In one case highlighted – the death of a four-month old baby “Baby G” – it took almost two years for social services to meet face-to-face with the child’s mother, despite serious welfare concerns for her family.

Paul Harrison, the HSE’s national child care specialist, sympathised with families who have lost children.

He said the executive was working to introduce standardised assessments of children at risk from next year onwards. He added officials were examining new ways of handling “how cases come in through the front door”, and making greater use of community and voluntary groups.

The annual report for the National Review Panel also states that its workload is “virtually impossible” to carry out due to the number of cases it is required to investigate.

While initial estimates suggested the panel would be likely to deal with just two deaths and eight serious incidents a year, the panel dealt with some 22 deaths and eight serious incidents in 2010 alone.

Children’s groups including the Children’s Rights Alliance and Epic – which represents children in care – called on health authorities to urgently address the gaps and deficits highlighted in the report.

 

http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/1018/childc.pdf - click here to download the Executive Summary by Dr. Helen Buckley
 
Valuable lessons from Aussie system of mandatory reporting

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/health/2011/0809/1224302081088.html

The Irish Times - Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Ireland should look overseas for guidance before introducing tough new child protection rules here, writes CARL O'BRIEN 

‘THE DAYS OF voluntary compliance are over when it comes to child protection,” said Minister for Children Frances Fitzgerald recently, following yet another horrific child-abuse report.

It was a bold statement. After years of failure by church and State authorities to fully comply with child-protection guidelines, Fitzgerald insisted that voluntary guidelines were not enough. Under tough new laws, failure to disclose information on child sexual abuse would result in such sanctions as fines or jail terms, she said. In addition, the national code on dealing with child protection concerns, Children First, would be placed on a statutory footing, creating a legal duty for adults who work with children to report suspected cases of abuse and neglect. No one would be above the law.

A heated debate is unfolding on whether mandatory reporting is a good idea. Could it lead to a flood of reports and push overstretched services to breaking point? Or might it change our culture?

In looking for answers, it’s worth considering Australia, where mandatory reporting has been in place for decades. All its eight states and territories have some kind of legislative requirement to report known and reasonably suspected significant child abuse.

The groups of people who are obliged to report suspected significant abuse vary from a limited number of groups of specified persons such as doctors and nurses (as in Queensland), to a broader range of persons working with children (including doctors, nurses, teachers, police and others, as in New South Wales) to every adult (as in the Northern Territory).

Each region defines the different categories of suspected child maltreatment that must be reported to authorities, usually requiring reports of all four major types of maltreatment: physical abuse, sexual abuse, psychological or emotional abuse, and neglect.

At a recent seminar in Trinity College Dublin, Prof Leah Bromfield, the deputy director of the Australian Centre for Child Protection at the University of South Australia, warned that Ireland should think carefully about introducing mandatory reporting.

New South Wales has been the subject of particular attention. It introduced mandatory reporting in the 1970s, requiring medical practitioners to report assault, ill-treatment or exposure. Over the years, the state widened the definition of abuse and, by 2000, reporting duties extended to exposure to domestic violence, where the child is at risk of serious harm.

Within several years, the rate of reporting had risen six-fold, overwhelming the child protection system. Fearful of being prosecuted, professionals were overloading the system with reports of suspected abuse or neglect. Only an eighth of reports were confirmed as abuse, but resources were being swallowed up trying to cope with the reports, at the cost of the kind of less formal social work, such as family support, that could help children.

In the end, the horrific deaths of two children, who had been known to social services, prompted a review of the child protection Services. The Wood Inquiry’s recommendations led to the introduction of a system to help filter tens of thousands of calls to the department and allow social services to focus on those children in most serious danger. The remainder of calls would be diverted to community services.

Dr Ben Mathews, associate professor at the School of Law at Queensland University of Technology, says he fully endorses a legislative duty to report significant abuse, but says such a system needs to be carefully designed and much depends on the “prudent and clear drafting of legislation”. Of vital importance, he says, is making clear to reporters what extent of abuse needs to be reported, rather than simply extending the reporting duties and leaving them vague and ill-defined.

In addition, mandatory reporting should be supplemented by expert multidisciplinary training for those mandated to report abuse concerns. This means these individuals gain vital knowledge about the indicators of mistreatment, how to deal appropriately with disclosures or suspicions of abuse, and the true nature of their reporting duty.

In the case of New South Wales, he says it is too simple to describe the problem there as a case of “laws causing a flood of overreports”. The data show that much of the increase in reports was from the police. The Wood Inquiry showed that much of the so-called “over-reporting” was due to multiple reports about the same group of children. For example, in 2006-2007, more than half of all reports concerned a fifth of the children involved in all reports.

“The Wood Inquiry expressly rejected the claim that the laws cause intolerable over-reporting and rejected the argument that the laws should be abolished,” Mathews says.

The inquiry observed that the number of children who were the subject of a report for the first time had fallen every year since 2001/02.

The inquiry concluded that rather than abolishing reporting laws, the system needed greater effectiveness in reporting (including better training of reporters) and more appropriate treatment of reports. Two major recommendations of the Wood Inquiry were to limit the legislative reporting duty to cases of suspected significant harm, and to implement a greater focus on the referral of more minor cases to community-based services.

These are lessons of major relevance to our Government as it begins to draw up its own plans for mandatory reporting, he says. “Government data from the US, Canada and Australia consistently shows that reports by mandated reporters make a massive contribution to protecting children from severe abuse, neglect [and death]. This applies especially to younger children, who are the most vulnerable of all.”
 
More Articles...
<< Start < Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next > End >>

Page 1 of 14