25% of youths in care end up in jail

A quarter of young people who have left health board care and 65 per cent of those who have left special schools were imprisoned or put into a detention centre within two years, according to a new study.

The Focus Ireland report, Left Out On Their Own: Young People Leaving Care In Ireland, also found that within six months of leaving special schools, 39 per cent were either in a place of detention or prison.

Within six months, 33 per cent of young people leaving health board care and 30 per cent of the special school population were or had been homeless. Within two years of leaving State care, 68 per cent of the health board population and 33 per cent of the special school population had experienced homelessness.

The report, introduced yesterday by the Minister of State with special responsibility for childcare, Ms Mary Hanafin, was carried out over two years and involved 135 case histories.

According to the president of Focus Ireland, Sister Stanislaus Kennedy, it confirms the anecdotal experience of the charity in its work with homeless young people.

"Anyone reading this report is inexorably driven to the conclusion that our childcare system is not working in the interests of children, that the State is not fulfilling its responsibility for the children in care and that the human rights of children are being violated on a daily basis," she said.

Apart from the drift into homelessness and prison, the report describes a bleak future for the majority of those leaving State care. The study found that 55 per cent had left because their placement was unsuccessful. Nearly 30 per cent who left special schools had absconded.

Six months after leaving care, less than one quarter of the health board population and 15 per cent of the special school population had a job, despite almost full employment among the general population.

Eighteen months later there was some improvement, with 34 per cent of the health board population and 20 per cent of the special school population at work.

However, those working were in low-paid employment, according to the study. Some 55 per cent of those who left health board care and 44 per cent of those who left special school did so without any qualification.

A quarter of the young people studied were considered by the authors to have been inappropriately placed.

For example, young people were placed in special schools when their real need was for short-stay specialised drug-treatment or counselling services following severe trauma.

"The root problem," said Sister Kennedy, "is lack of strategic planning and lack of a single vision for childcare." The fact that three Government Departments were involved in childcare was "absurd".

Among the report's recommendations are the immediate appointment of an ombudsman for children, a radical examination of the supports needed by young people leaving care, additional care placements, particularly ones that can respond to severely traumatised young people, and a centralised unit which would allocate places on the basis of need rather than space.