Lack of placements leaves children in ‘harm’s way’

A number of children remain in “harm’s way” due to lack of placements in homes and, should they find somewhere to go, they would be under a care order, says the priest who has had to turn away eight boys since January.

Fr Frankie Cini, director of St Joseph’s Home in Sta Venera, has a waiting list of children referred to the home from Appoġġ agency’s child protection section, meaning their problems are most acute. Their parents may be junkies and alcoholics, they are severely neglected, beaten, alone or are in grave need of a placement.

Otherwise, they were already in care but had grown out of their homes and if St Joseph could not cater for them it was likely they got sent back to their families, Fr Cini said of the “major bottleneck” that has formed.

He is not the first to raise the issue and care orders are being examined by a task force set up by the Children’s Commissioner, on the basis of a report last year that said the opening of more homes was “indispensable”.

“On a national level, we have children we have not been able to extricate from situations of severe stress and hardship due to the lack of placements,” Fr Cini said, adding the home was often asked to cater for an emergency but was not equipped for this.

Admission to institutionalised care was expected to decrease with fostering but it had not been the case and the uptake had been slow, despite the “excellent” team at Appoġġ, Fr Cini said.

He pointed a finger at Malta’s insularity, which led parents to hesitate to go for it, scared of the possible contact with the natural family, who could end up knocking on their door, demanding their kids back.

“In an ideal world, everyone is fostered and we can close down,” Fr Cini said. Until then, though, he is busy improving the environment for his boys.

Turning away children is not due to lack of space but because of budgetary constraints. Moreover, Fr Cini does not want to go back to the crowded situation of the 1950s when the home accommodated about 150 boys.

At the moment, the population of the Sta Venera home, which can go up to 18, is being kept to a minimum, pending a €100,000 refurbishment project that involves redesigning the older children’s wing to have two upgraded apartments.

Fr Cini wants to ensure the “least disruption for the least number of kids” during the works. By September, when they should be completed, he is hoping to admit the full complement but, even then, waiting lists would not be cut.

Spearheaded and coordinated by the Independent Living Project team of young entrepreneurs, the initiative is being launched at the home’s open day tomorrow.

The team is seeking sponsorship and holding fund-raising activities for the project but donations are also welcome on the day, which is aimed primarily at raising awareness on life in an institution and eradicating any common misconceptions.

Children in care were still stigmatised, like those at Mount Carmel Hospital, so visitors could satisfy their curiosity about their daily life, Fr Cini said, adding that every two weeks, he received a call from parents who lost control over their kids, asking whether they could be “locked up” at the home.

“The open day is not a damage-control exercise, if it were, I would have done it eight years ago. Since then, the home has been exposed, overexposed and over-overexposed,” he said, referring to the sex-abuse scandals that erupted in 2003.

The project follows the refurbishment of the quarters for the eight- to 14-year-olds and is in line with Fr Cini’s belief that even the environment counts.

The older boys have already moved to another wing while their quarters have been gutted by young volunteers before the area of independent living is created, centred on the skills they would need, including cooking, budgeting and laundry, to be able to live alone.

“We want our boys to be able to do well when they leave,” Fr Cini said.

The second apartment is being designed to cater for those who have nowhere to go at the weekend, which amount to four at the moment.

The open day was also targeting former residents, Fr Cini said. “For some, being here was painful, even beyond the abuse. They did not want to be here because they had been separated from their numerous families too early and felt deprived. But many others want to revisit it. After all, at that time, it was their home.”

More information is available on the Facebook page: St Joseph’s Home – Independent Living Project.