TRADITIONALLY residential and child care services have been built around the needs of society and not those of children. Unfortunately this trend seems to be continued in yesterday's report from Focus Ireland.

The report has much to say about the infrastructure needed to provide for children in care. Largely missing, however, is a consideration of the psychological needs of these children.

The report was, of course, written prior to the recent revelations concerning the Goldenbridge scandal. "Nevertheless, it is very disappointing to find that it pays such scant attention to the emotional and psychological needs of children in care.

These include the right and the need to have a personal identity and to be free from shame, humiliation and stigmatisation. Children in a care have a fundamental right and need for love and they deserve at the very least a good quality home like atmosphere.

This, most importantly, would include a significant adult who is consistently there for them. In a residential setting this would need to be a consistent member of staff who liked, loved and cared for each individual child as a mother and father would for their own children.

All children, like all adults, need continuity in their lives, and this includes a stable home life whether that is in a children's home or in a regular family. What this report does reveal is that this stability is denied to many children in care. It has much to say about children being shunted around from one form of care home to another, and on occasion finding themselves homeless.

That this is an utter disgrace in a society which claims to care so much for children should go without saying yet it happens. The implications for society are serious. Children who have not experienced a good quality home life are likely to have grave difficulties in creating such lives for themselves and their families.

The report acknowledges that foster care is not suitable for all children, and this acknowledgment is welcome. However, I believe it should go farther. Foster care is now the normal situation of children in care. This reverses the situation of 25 years ago, when most such children were raised in residential homes run by religious and voluntary organisations.

My major concern with foster care is that such children may become isolated. Where children are happy in foster care, this is great, but too often this system of care breaks down because some foster families cannot cope, unsupported, with behavioural problems.

Such problems occur particularly with children who have been moved from pillar to post. They may be angry, sad and upset by these rejections yet we expect them to accept the situation without question.

There is a more serious side to this issue which must be addressed, unpalatable though it is. This is the risk of abuse, whether physical, emotional or sexual.

I am not suggesting that most foster carers are abusive. But even a small proportion of instances of abuse is too much. The reality is that social workers are operating at crisis level and will not tend towards visiting children placed in what they see as "good" or respectable households.

If we do not face up to these dangers now, we may face another Dear Daughter documentary in 20 years' time outlining abuses in the foster care system.

If the presence of loving staff members in residential homes over long periods of time is fundamental to the psychological well being of children and I believe it is then these staff members must be treated well by the system which employs them.

Yet this report reveals that there are major disparities around the country with regard to salary and status. This needs to be urgently addressed.

The present situation creates conflict and resentment among care workers, both in residential care and in the community. Children in care have enough to cope with and it is not helpful to them when staff are disgruntled, dissatisfied and resentful about their lack of status.

Unless we as a society are mindful of these issues and take serious cognisance of them, we will inflict more unnecessary pain on these children.

Enhancing the status and salaries of care workers would, I feel, go a long way towards boosting their self image, confidence and effectiveness and more importantly would encourage them to remain in the post for significant periods of time.

Policy makers would benefit children in care if they concentrated on contributing to the creation of emotional stability and continuity in the lives of these children. Children would also benefit significantly if professional care workers were trained in counselling skills such as listening, empathising, acceptance, warmth and the giving of unconditional love and, crucially, not withdrawing this love when behaviour is less than perfect.

Staff and children, I would suggest could benefit from personal development courses to enable staff to empathise more effectively with the children in their care. In other words, they would learn to put themselves in the children's shoes and I think they would find it is not a comfortable place to be.

No matter where a child may be regular family, foster family or residential care he or she is entitled to feel safe, secure, valued, respected, trusted and loved.

This report was disappointing in that it paid little or no attention to these fundamentally important issues in the lives of people being raised in care.