Suffer the little children

Dara Gantly

The HSE’s Roscommon report was sadly all too familiar, says Dara Gantly

“As children and young people, we have a right to be protected and be safe from harm from others. When we have difficulties or problems, we expect you to get to know us; speak with us; listen to us; take us seriously; involve us; respect our privacy; be responsible to us; think about our lives as a whole; think carefully about how you use information about us; put us in touch with the right people; use your power to help; make things happen when they should; and help us be safe.”

This is the powerful introduction to ‘Protecting Children and Young People — The Charter’, published by the Scottish Government in 2004.

Scotland has had its own tragedies. In 2001, a review of child protection was instigated following the inquiry into the murder of three-year-old Kennedy McFarlane. An audit published the following year found that half of all children at risk of abuse and neglect in the country failed to receive adequate protection.

Two years later, the Scottish Executive published the children’s charter, setting out how carers and professionals should protect and respect their rights.

Prior to this, a literature review (‘It’s everyone’s job to make sure “I’m alright”’) was published to provide an overview of the ideas and research evidence on child abuse and child protection.

One depressing conclusion of that review was that inquiries and reviews tended to repeat the conclusions of previous inquiries and reviews, which suggests lessons were not being learned.

Many inquiries had also highlighted unacceptably low professional standards, and various reports reviewed from across the UK and further afield made constant reference to the clouding of professional judgment and lack of professional experience and expertise.

The official report into Kennedy McFarlane’s death concluded that no single person was responsible and that the social-work staff did their best in difficult circumstances.

The report found, however, that there were numerous opportunities when the extent of the risks to Kennedy could have been identified and effective intervention implemented.

The literature review also found that the process of assessment is consistently criticised in inquiries, particularly in relation to professionals’ understanding of risk factors.

Inquiries also highlight inadequate social-work training and an inadequate grasp of the theoretical knowledge needed to make sense of the information which is gathered.

Lack of supervision and incidence of poor line-management has been a further theme of inquiry reports over the past number of decades, the Scottish review found.

Poor recording has also been highlighted and there are numerous examples of information not being recorded or being recorded incorrectly.

A further finding has typically been the failure of professionals and agencies to communicate appropriately or share information.

This was a literature review carried out in 2003. It is utterly depressing to discover that it would be much the same in 2010, with the HSE’s inquiry team report into the Roscommon Child Care Case added to the bibliography.

Indeed, a 1996 report into the death of Kelly Fitzgerald, also critical of the Western Health Board, produced similar headlines, Dáil debates and editorials. It would seem that tragedy has taught us very little.

The HSE gave an “unreserved and unequivocal” apology last week to the six children and young people of the family involved in the Roscommon case.

It accepted that “clear service failures” took place in the then Western Health Board and that the “voices” of the children were not heard.

But it was committed to learning from this and other reports. We desperately hope so.

But we need more. We require our own children’s charter. We need that long-overdue Constitutional referendum giving children greater legal rights and protections.