Yet another minister has announced that the Government would like to facilitate the adoption of children living in institutions or with foster families.
Current legislation can stand in the way of adoption. If objections are voiced by the birth parents, even if they have abandoned or badly neglected their children, they have to be fought in a court of law, which can be reluctant to strip them of their parental rights.
Visiting a children’s residential home the other day, Social Solidarity Minister Louise Coleiro Preca said talks on the matter were underway with her Cabinet colleague responsible for justice.
Before her, similar pronouncements were made along the years. Five years ago, it had been reported that a national policy was being drawn up on ‘looked-after’ children but this does not yet appear to have seen the light of day.
This is not to say there has been no work carried out in the meantime on efforts to fulfil one of the most fundamental of children’s rights: to grow up in a family environment. The Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by Malta, makes it clear that the State should intervene, if necessary, to ensure that this takes place.
In line with this principle, more resources have been allocated to the promotion of fostering, the next best thing to adoption in terms of providing children with a secure family upbringing. Here, the service given by Aġenzija Appoġġ has been excellent.
There have also been efforts to improve standards in institutional care, which is largely provided by Church homes, with a move towards smaller units and more personalised attention thanks, in part, to input by Appoġġ.
Given that a new national policy would need to be underpinned by research, it is essential to point out that the Office of the Commissioner for Children had undertaken three major studies on children in out-of-home care and these were published last year.
No doubt, the present minister, motivated both by the pressing need to de-institutionalise children’s care and also by the Labour Party’s electoral pledge to provide continuity in policies across the board, will draw on these studies and other work that could have been carried out by the previous government in forging the way forward.
The studies themselves leave no doubt that this is a matter of urgency.
First of all, more than 200 children were living in institutions at the time the various researchers compiled their statistics. This is about four times higher, on a per capita basis, than countries more advanced in the field, that is, where institutionalisation is resorted to only in the case of emergencies.
The research also puts paid to any lingering doubt there may have been as to where children’s best interests lie. While Church homes will still have a role to play (and Maltese society owes them a debt of gratitude for their service over many years) the evidence points irrefutably to greater psychological and social well-being when children are brought up in a family with close and secure attachments.
It is, therefore, imperative that the long-promised major step forward of making adoption easier to achieve will now be taken.
Furthermore, along the lines of the studies’ recommendations, the de-institutionalisation process must be stepped up, especially for children who are under five, with greater resort to the fostering alternative.
Realising that what is at stake here is the development of vulnerable children, Cabinet ministers will surely use the impetus and goodwill of a new Administration to act fast and firmly.