Opposition welcomes foster care Bill

The Opposition yesterday welcomed the Foster Care Bill but, expressed regret that it had not been brought before the House earlier.

Opposition solidarity spokesman Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca said this was a positive Bill which would give life in Malta to important provisions of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Earlier, Social Solidarity Minister Dolores Cristina, resuming her introduction to the debate from last week's sitting, said that, thanks to this Bill, foster families would have a clear statute of their duties and responsibilities. The Bill would also make clear what information foster families had a right to.

The Bill also defined offences related to fostering. For example, it would be a crime for anyone to make money out of arranging fostering. It would be a crime for a non-accredited agency to make arrangements for fostering and no one could use children in difficult circumstances for media purposes. The privacy of such children had to be respected in all circumstances.

It would be a crime for anyone to pressure foster families in any way, including forcing or inducing a foster family to give up fostering of a child.

It would also be a crime to take a child away from foster families or to pressure the Fostering Board.

Mrs Cristina said all approved foster carers will be given temporary approval by the new board but they will have to inform the board within three months of this Bill becoming law and a proper assessment would then be made.

Concluding Mrs Cristina said the government was looking at further measures to support foster families and help children under foster care, including emotional support where required. She said she would welcome suggestions on this Bill until it was debated in committee.

Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca, opposition spokesman on social solidarity, said this was a positive Bill. She paid tribute to the Church for having been the first to house vulnerable children, well before the concept of foster care developed. She also thanked foster families and social carers and welfare officers. Such officers, she said, had managed to train foster families and assign children to foster families even without a proper legal regime.

Fostering was a noble service which was very important for society in general and children in particular. The opposition was backing this Bill. It had underlined the need for this Bill in its policy documents and would have liked it to come before the House earlier. Indeed, a future Labour government would remain committed to further improving foster care legislation and services.

This Bill would give life in Malta to various articles of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child such as the duty of the state to protect children from physical or mental violence, maltreatment or neglect. The convention spoke on the duty of the state to protect and assist children deprived of their family environment or who could not live with their families and it mentioned foster care as a means of alternative care for such children.

Mrs Coleiro Preca said she was particularly struck by how the director of children's homes, Fr McKeon, had himself stressed how, despite the efforts of institutions to provide the best environment for children, nothing could be better than a family environment, including the environment of a foster family.

Malta had 250 children in institutions, a high number for a country of its size. International research spoke on how a secure, loving, family environment was vital for children, particularly infants.

This Bill was, therefore, essential, but it needed to be backed by the mechanisms to make it work. Malta needed to do more to promote fostering and encourage more couples to open their hearts and homes for these children. In some countries, children aged up to three years were not placed in institutions unless they needed medical care.

The House Social Affairs Committee should discuss how these mechanisms could be improved. Holding back because of financial costs would only mean higher costs for society later.

Mrs Coleiro Preca also insisted that, as far as possible, children should be heard in all procedures affecting them, such as court cases and even fostering.

Indeed, it was important that there was a holistic approach in all sectors involving childcare. One could not, for example, have a situation where foster parents worked to ease a child out of some traumatic experience, only for that child to be then required to give evidence on that experience in court, thereby reopening the wounds.

The Bill was rightly setting a certain amount of safeguards for foster parents who were, in some instances, harassed by the natural parents.

Foster parents could never be adequately compensated for their service, definitely not with the Lm12 a week per child they were currently given. Therefore, the Bill should acknowledge the principle of a private care benefit. There were foster parents who had to find a part time job to be able to afford the child they were fostering. Natural parents whose children were being fostered should also be made to give some form of compensation, such as maintenance. If they did not work and could not provide this maintenance, the state had to involve itself.

The state also needed to remove other difficulties. For example, foster carers who wanted to take a child with them abroad had to pay Lm60 for the child's passport. Why did they have to pay six times the normal fee?

Mrs Coleiro Preca also insisted that more social workers needed to be engaged by the state because their current work load was far too heavy. Among their other duties, social workers had to monitor, hold meetings and assess people who could possibly be foster parents and carry out the initial and ongoing training. Some social workers had a caseload of around 30 cases.

Abroad, social workers did not have a case load of more than 20 plain sailing foster cases. When they had more difficult and complicated cases, the caseload did not exceed eight cases.

When it came to child psychologists, the two at Appogg had to keep up with fostering and other social cases. Not much could be achieved with such a small number.

Referring to the Fostering Board, Mrs Coleiro Preca said clear reasons should be given when a member was removed so as not to have wrong interpretations.

On accredited agencies, Ms Coleiro Preca said these could include private ones. If certain services could be offered against payment, one should be careful not to burden those who could potentially be foster carers with excessive fees. There should not be a situation where only people who were in a better financial situation could foster children.

Other speakers will be reported tomorrow.