Number of children in residential care should fall by 80 per cent - Gerada

The number of children in residential care should fall by 80 per cent, according to the social welfare chief, amid calls for new and comprehensive children's legislation.

Around 250 children are in residential care. Foundation for Social Welfare Services (FSWS) CEO Joe Gerada would like to see this number reduced to no more than 50 at any one time. And he insists the majority of these should be children with challenging behaviour and psychological conditions.

Mr Gerada was speaking to The Sunday Times in the wake of a recent evaluation of children's services in Malta.

The evaluation, described as the 'Magna Carta of children's services', was a capacity-building exercise focused on the needs of children in care - funded by the Commonwealth Secretariat and conducted by independent consultants from the Open University in the UK over a nine-month period. It was presented to stakeholders on November 12.

Although the evaluation praised the high calibre of work practices in social services for children in care, it found services were hindered by an absence of clear legislation and strategic vision, as well as scarce resources.

Social workers in Malta operate under different pieces of legislation and administrative directives which are valid in their own right, but cause confusion because they are not consolidated, Mr Gerada said.

"We would to like to see a comprehensive Children's Act with a clear commitment to the different interventions and services that these children would require," he said.

A number of drafts of the children's Act have been made since 2000, but no legislation has come into formal existence.

The evaluation also stated that the development of services for children in care should move away from residential care and focus on children's need for family support in the form of fostering and adoption.

"In today's world, children need to experience firsthand a family-like environment. Therefore, if we're going to invest in children's services, then let's invest in supporting family-like structures," said Mr Gerada.

Appoġġ children's services manager Ruth Sciberras agrees with the report's findings that more incentives need to be offered to potential foster carers.

"I think we have reached saturation point - foster parents cannot keep fostering children on €40 a week," Ms Sciberras said.

She said some foster parents needed to work to support their families and could not afford to give up their jobs to become full time foster carers for babies who required 24-hour care.

Mr Gerada believes the evaluation vindicates comments he gave to The Times last month in which he proposed that parents with children in care should be given a stipulated timeframe to regain custody of their children or else put them up for adoption.

The report states that a child should be placed in institutional care only in extreme cases, and for the shortest time possible. That period should used by parents to make the necessary progress for their child to be returned.

However, there should always be a time limit because children grew up, he said, and if they missed out on a family-like environment in childhood, they would have lost it forever.

The ministry failed to respond to questions sent by The Sunday Times regarding the introduction of a comprehensive Children's Act, increased funding for foster carers and the introduction of a time limit for failing parents.