Substitute families

At the moment, 50 children aged up to 18 are waiting to be fostered. They are in institutions and are missing out on a fundamental right - to form part of a family.

It is for this reason, and also because fostering is considered to be the ideal situation for children who have been deprived of a natural family, that a campaign to recruit foster carers is being conducted by Agenzija Appogg, with a fresh training programme for prospective foster carers starting at the end of this month.

The number of foster carers and children in foster care may have increased over the years (see facts and figures), but there are still more abused or abandoned children waiting to find a family than there are families available.

The agency's Foster Care Service trains, assesses and supports foster carers, as well as the children in placements, the marketing and communications executive of the Foundation for Social Welfare Services, Sara Bianchi, explains. Two to three training programmes for foster carers are run every year, with between eight and 10 couples and even a few single persons, who are not excluded, in each.

Following the training, social workers draw up a home study report, which is presented to a panel that decides whether to give the green light. If the assessment concludes that the candidates are fit to be foster carers, the right family is matched to a particular child's needs.

The campaign to recruit foster families is part of a strategy to reach two objectives, the foundation's CEO, Joe Gerada, says. "Since we are carrying out intensive work in the area of child protection, we are finding more and more children who need a placement - who need to live away from their families for a while due to particular circumstances.

"The second objective is based on our wholehearted belief in children's rights, the most basic being the right to a family."

So far, the practice in Malta has been to put children in institutions, which for many years have rendered a sterling service and continue to do so despite their shortcomings, he points out.

However, in this day and age, Malta being a signatory of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and also because all psychological and welfare studies indicate that the best environment for children to be brought up in is the family, the need to provide foster care is even more imperative, he maintains.

In foster care, children are still part of their original family. The ultimate goal is for them to return home if and when possible. Foster care, however, is not a case of part-time parenting. Often confused with weekend outings, it is actually a permanent placement, which can be long term (five years or more), medium term (over a year), or short term (up to a year), depending on the social worker's decision, based on the child's needs. Plans are reviewed every six months as "nothing is static in these situations".

Appogg operations director Yvonne Mallia explains that "one of the most important things we look at is the genuine interest these couples have in children. It is important that they do this to help the child and not to satisfy their own needs, or fill in a gap".

The basic prerequisite is that the couple offers a stable family environment, but is capable of letting go when the time comes for the children to move on to their natural families, even though in some circumstances they may never go back. An important part of the training is how to love the children in a way that they do not have to go through a trauma when it is time to let go.

"People are people, and they have feelings. But because they are trained and know how things could develop eventually, they are prepared," says Mr Gerada.

Where possible, contact with their natural parents is always encouraged and the children meet them during their placement, the reason being that they themselves want this, even if they have been abused. Their roots are there and cannot be negated.

Of course, there are ways and means of keeping in touch, and if there are risks, the service also has in place supervised access visits.

Part of the training is also for the foster carers to have, where possible, good contact and a strong relationship with the natural family, so that when the child moves on, the transition takes place with ease. In good situations, both families normally become friends and the foster parents are referred to as uncles and aunts. Of course, however, there are also situations where they never meet because the natural families object to the fact that their children are in foster care.

The foster carers always have a social worker and support groups attached to them to help address their problems. They continue to be supported even when the placement is over and this to help them deal with any emotions they may have.

It is also important that the number of foster carers approved is always in proportion to the number of social workers who support them. It would be dangerous to have more of the former, she says.

Although 50 children have been identified as priorities for immediate placements, most of those in institutions would benefit from foster care and, "in an ideal situation, the whole lot would be moved out".

Priorities are based primarily on age, and babies are always considered the most important as it is imperative that children are in a family environment from a young age. The older kids are harder to place. Adolescents come with more baggage, and finding families ready to look after them is not easy, Ms Mallia points out.

To tackle this issue, the agency is working on specialised foster care in the case of children who present bigger challenges, including disability and mental health problems. It would entail more intensive support, with the possibility of offering the foster families some kind of financial assistance to compensate for the burdens these children may carry.

For Mr Gerada, the context around foster care - child protection - is of vital importance, foster care being only a drop in a more dramatic ocean. As many as 458 cases of child abuse are currently being investigated.

"The reality is that we will never be able to put a total end to institutional care. But the number has to be much lower than this."

Institutions grew at a time when children entered them as a direct result of material poverty. But, on the emotional level, the parents continued to look after them, Mr Gerada explains. Today, the scenario has changed completely, characterised by a strong emotional poverty - in the form of broken families or disrupted lives due to drugs and alcohol.

The challenges that children in institutions are presenting today are far more serious, with mental health, psychological and behavioural problems, which were not so present in the past.

It is amazing how couples opt to undertake such a task, but Mr Gerada believes that "there are still many genuine people around", ready to take care of these children 24 hours a day. As financial support, they are entitled to a child-in-care benefit of Lm12 a week from the government for each child.

Although much ground is being covered, many other aspects of children's needs have to be regulated, Mr Gerada says. The agency strongly supports the development of a law on foster care, while the Adoption Act needs to be revisited to make it even easier for Maltese families to adopt.

"We are in a state of development, but there is still more road to cover so that the legal framework will be good enough to provide the necessary safety."

Through the eyes of a fostered child

John's* 14 years of life have been far from easy, or normal. One of many siblings dispersed around the island, he has been in residential care since birth. Even his first experience in foster care turned sour when the family broke down and he was, yet again, the first to be abandoned.

It is not surprising that John had behavioural problems and that he gave his new foster mother a hard time when he went to stay with his new foster family at the age of nine. John's behaviour was often challenging and he would retreat into an impenetrable shell, preventing his foster parents from getting through to him.

Coming from an institution, where children are far less exposed to day-to-day occurrences than their peers - at nine, he had no concept of what an airport was and the function it served - John lacked basic skills, unable to tell the time and having poor table manners. He had never read a book in his life. His foster mother fought the odds to get through to him, teach him and win his trust. She succeeded in the end when she fought tooth and nail to have him united with one of his sisters, who was in a crèche.

The nuns had not wanted John's sister to be fostered in the same home in the belief that separating siblings was not a problem. Today, efforts are made to keep brothers and sisters together. Being separated just adds to the heartache that these children have to face. Luckily, John was eventually given a voice...

How do you feel about your foster family?
I feel really happy because they are people who are agreeing to help children from residential care, helping them in their future and showing them what love means. When I lived in residential care, I never thought I could have a nice future, but now, my dreams are big and I know I can make it. From my foster family, I get help with school and dealing with problems.

Do you feel you are missing out compared to other children?
No, I don't think I am missing out on anything compared to other children. When I was in residential care, yes, I did feel it.

What do you think of your natural parents?
I really don't think highly about my natural parents. I never loved them and I still don't love them. I never want to see them again.

What do you think of your foster parents?
I really like my foster parents and I wish to live with them till I grow up and have my own family.

Your worst childhood memory...
I once threw my school bag down three storeys at school. I did it because I did not care. But then I almost hit another boy and I felt guilty as I would have hurt him. I got 10 detentions.

How would you imagine your own family to be in the future?
I imagine that I would have two children. I imagine that we would be a very happy family because of the help my foster parents are giving me now. I now know what a real family is.

Do you feel sorry for kids in residential care?
Yes, I feel really sorry for them. I feel sorry because I know how hard it is for them to cope with life. They don't know what real love is and they have not experienced it yet. They do not have one person in their lives who is always there for them, someone they can trust with their feelings and problems. They don't have a lot of things that belong to them alone and not to everyone else. They feel very lonely and lost.

Your biggest fear...
That I would not be able to become a lawyer, so I would not be able to help all those children who are stuck in homes with no hopes and wishes in their lives and for their future. I want to make a difference in their lives because I was lucky and I want other children to know how beautiful life can be.

Your greatest wish...
To help all those children who are still living in homes and to help them experience a proper family.

* Not his real name.

The recently established National Foster Care Association Malta will be holding a funfair at Dar San Guzepp, in Sta Venera, tomorrow from 2 p.m. to 6. The aim is to raise funds for the association to hold seminars, training and outings for the children, as well as an awareness on fostering.

Facts and figures

¤ Foster carers last year amounted to 159 as opposed to 152 in 2004. Of these, 66 were next of kin and 93 were not related.

¤ Last year, there were 185 children in foster care (some families take care of more than one child), up from 177 in 2004, with 103 boys and 82 girls.

¤ Appogg's Looked After Children Service followed 443 children (in residential and foster care) in 2005. This service offers a social worker to every child in residential or foster care. It also has a high-support service, whereby a team of care workers is placed in institutions with children who have serious behavioural problems and with whom the nuns find it difficult to cope.

¤ Children receiving the High Support Service (children with major needs) totalled 13 last year.

¤ High Support Service care workers amount to 20.

¤ A total of 75 care orders are in force and have been issued in the last three years, with eight new ones being issued by the Child Protection Service between January and March of this year. Last year and the year before, 29 new care orders were issued, marking a jump from 17 in 2003. (Under a care order, the child is taken away from its family by administrative decision. This is considered to be the harshest step and means that all other interventions did not work out.)

¤ Between 2003 and 2005, a total of 3,089 referrals were made to the Child Protection Service of Appogg. The figure has decreased over the last three years, with 1,383 in 2003 and 814 in 2005.

¤ Child Protection Service case turnover (the cases worked on by the social workers) totalled 4,191 over the last three years, with 1,734 in 2003, 1,462 in 2004 and 995 last year.

¤ The Appogg Supportline 179 received 16,018 genuine calls from adults and 479 from children; a total of 16,497 calls last year.

Agenzija Appogg forms part of the Foundation for Social Welfare Services, which incorporates Agenzija Sapport and Agenzija Sedqa. For more information, contact the Appogg Foster Care Service on 2295 9000.

(Appogg Supportline 179; Sedqa helpline 151; www.appogg.gov.mt)