Social workers call for better regulation of child residential services

The findings of child abuse at Lourdes Home underlined the need for regulating the provision of services for children in out-of-home (residential and foster) care, the Maltese Association of Social Workers (MASW) said today.

" The MASW fully supports the setting up of standards in residential care for children and urges the employment of an adequate amount of professional staff in children's homes, such as residential social workers.

"MASW also fully endorses the need for training and professional support of all staff and volunteers working with vulnerable client groups, particularly children with challenging behaviour and, generally, children who are not living with their family of origin."

The association said that while it deplored every case of abuse, it was only fair to acknowledge that over the years Lourdes Home had provided care and protection for a number of children. It has also provided concrete and sustained support and respite to their families.

It noted, however, that there was mounting pressure on the traditional system of care, and basic deficiencies in this system were coming to the fore.

"We believe that the principles of solidarity and subsidiarity which should be guiding our society should also spur the State with the responsibility of caring for its most vulnerable citizens in the event that their families would not be able to do so. However, given the over-reliance on Church and other voluntary institutions in providing this resource-intensive service for children and families, the State's investment in this field has been rather limited. In fact most children's residential care services have come to rely too much on charity and a good part of the energy of those running them is spent in raising funds to pay lay staff, maintenance and running costs.

"In an ideal scenario the State would take a more active role in seeing that such services are sufficiently developed to be able to see to and respond to these young people's developmental, emotional and social needs and to enter into sound management arrangements with the voluntary organisations running these homes."

The association said it welcomed the fact that Ministry for the Family and Social Solidarity had started the process of formulating the National Standards of Care in an effort to improve the standards of practice in children's homes, as well as model policies which are geared not to leave 'good practice' to chance.

"The implementation of these policies, and the engagement of lay workers to replace the dwindling numbers of religious staff, is expected to bring about a huge rise in the expenses required to run a children's home.

"While abuse can take place in a residential setting as much as is it could take place in foster care, at home with relatives and in any other setting, the State should recognise that incidents of abuse in out-of-home care are more likely to happen when staff are operating unsupervised, in poor working conditions and having to cope with stressful demands from clients in an inadequately supported environment. Therefore, it is to be hoped that the State will not just propose but also finance these processes in order to bring about the much-desired change."