Malta needs more foster carers and residential home placements for children, because the time they spend waiting for an available spot can hugely impact their mental development, according to a social work researcher.

Daniella Zerafa has just completed her doctoral research on what makes social workers recommend care orders for children suffering abuse or neglect.

She spoke to this newspaper just as the Child Protection (Out of Home Care) Bill was being discussed by a parliamentary committee, and she hopes that the long-awaited law addresses the shortage of available placements.

The new law, Dr Zerafa believes, should focus on children’s needs and not just their protection. One way to do this is to have adequate placements.

“If there were a shortage, a social worker would grab the first available one, whether it’s with foster parents or in a residential home, irrespective of the environment that the child needs.

“Children’s needs go beyond protection. Once they are removed from their natural parents, the State does not only owe them shelter from abuse, but also needs to ensure they develop healthily, socially and psychologically.”

Dr Zerafa, who spent four years as a Child Protection Service supervisor during her decade with Appoġġ, is an assistant lecturer at the University of Malta.

Children’s needs go beyond protection

The difficulty of recommending a care order – which is always done as a last resort – stayed with her when she left the State agency.

So she looked into 15 family situations  in 2012, involving 25 children, where a care order was issued, and another 15 families (24 children) for whom social workers considered issuing a care order, but did not.

Her research is the first of its kind for Malta, and something particular to the local context is the very limited legal framework within which social workers can take decisions about children who need support.

Social workers depend on the parents’ willingness to allow them to monitor and refer children to the required services. Unless they require a care order, which is regulated by law, there is nothing that allows social workers to force parents to follow their advice.

“If a child is recommended for a learning support assistant assessment, but the parents do not give their approval or do not take the child for the assessment, there is nothing that social workers can do, and the child risks falling behind when it comes to educational development.”

Dr Zerafa’s research also shows that 14 of the 15 families issued with a care order had been followed by social services for at least three years and an average of six.

There were situations where social workers who recommended a care order believed it could have been issued years before.

Lack of out-of-home placements was one of the reasons for which care orders were not issued in six of 15 cases.

“When decisions are delayed, children are left in a chaotic environment to the detriment of their mental development; and once they are finally placed in out-of-home care, the work needed to repair the damage will be very intensive.”

She also noted that 24 of the 25 children issued with a care order were aged six years or less, with a number of them being a few months old.

Younger children are ideally placed with foster carers because of the importance of having a stable carer for their mental development. It was therefore important that the State invested in promoting fostering and recruiting more people who were interested in providing the service, Dr Zerafa said.

It should also invest in residential set-ups that are as close as possible to a family setting with a low carer turnover.

Another issue that delayed the recommendation of a care order was the number of chances that professionals felt they were expected to give parents. “Social workers were put in a position that they recommend the care order only after giving the parents several chances.

“But what about the children? Who is giving children a chance? The chances lost are not recoverable,” Dr Zerafa said.

Questions sent to the Foundation for Social Welfare Services on November 3 asking how many children are in foster care and residential homes, how many who need out-of-home care are on the waiting list and what happens to them in the meantime remained unanswered by the time this newspaper went to print.