Care Orders: Children's Commissioner pleads for resources

The Commissioner for Children has called for better communication between the government and the administrators of Church homes for children.

"It seems that the authorities do not realise that the nuns are human beings like everybody else, and they get tired and stressed out like every other person," Carmen Zammit said in a report published today.

The report was about the findings of the commissioner in an inquiry on care orders.

Mrs Zammit said this was an area which was seriously under-resourced.

The state depended on Church homes for the placement of minors, but the homes needed to be given greater assistance - both in terms of human resources and funds.

The homes also needed to have better security. The workers, the nuns and the children were not being adequately protected from aggression, whether caused by the parents, relatives of the children, or the children themselves, Mrs Zammit said. Furthermore, the staff were not adequately trained to protect themselves and control a situation when there was violence by the minors.

Mrs Zammit said that the social workers at Agenzija Appogg also had a huge workload which did not enable them to give the proper individual attention which was needed to cultivate a much needed relationship with the children, as well as their parents.

Also important, the commissioner said, was more training for these staff members, and better working conditions.

She also suggested a rethinking of services at Appogg to avoid fragmentation and ensure that children continued to be closely monitored, ideally by the same persons, as they progressed.