"TO BE labelled a bad mother in our society is pretty devastating. Yet that's what women feel when their children are taken into care. They feel stigmatised and need support."
Dr Pat O'Connor of the University of Limerick has carried out an evaluation of a project run by the Mid Western Health Board for the parents of children in care. She has no doubt that the system does not meet the needs of parents, especially mothers under stress.
"It is assumed that every mother can provide 24 hour care for every child that comes out of her womb, however handicapped or difficult that child might be. There is a need for a whole range of support facilities, even as simple as a `park a baby' facility. If they are not provided, and a crisis occurs, the alternatives are ridiculously dramatic."
When a family crisis occurs, it often leads to children being taken into care. While some support services exist for families in crisis, they are generally thought to be inadequate in relation to the need.
For example, there are just three family resource centres in the Eastern Health Board area in Ballymun, Tallaght and Finglas. There are two family centres, in Santry and Phibsborough.
There is also a number of professional and voluntary schemes offering support and advice where there might be concerns about the children, or where the families are experiencing difficulties. But lawyers representing people whose children are taken into care say the services do not come close to meeting the need.
"There is little or no positive support for families, and no Co-ordination," said Ms Roisin Connolly, a solicitor in Coolock Law Centre.
According to a study of children in residential homes, Focus on Residential Care in Ireland (1995), 16 per cent were there because of family breakdown or family crisis, 14 per cent because the family was unable to cope, and 10 per cent because of a breakdown of foster care. Sexual abuse and a combination of abuse accounted for only 19 per cent of referrals.
What happened in Molly's case is typical her mother, Sue, was at a crisis point, under stress because of a difficult pregnancy, later exacerbated by the death of the baby, and Molly, because of her handicap and behavioural problems, was a difficult child.
Sue needed help to get over the crisis, and longer term help to cope with Molly. What has happened is that she has ended up locked in a legal battle with the health board.
A barrister who deals with a lot of child care cases said this experience is not unique. "It can happen in a variety of situations. People going to the health hoard can find themselves in a bigger mess. Social workers are very powerful people. I know that in certain areas of Dublin people think twice before going to the health board because of that."
This was acknowledged by a spokeswoman for the Eastern Health Board "People may have some fear of approaching statutory agencies. We're there to help. But that may mean unpopular decisions.
Asked how people can go about resolving disputes with the health boards, she said they could go to people higher up than the person they were dealing with, to their public representative or to a lawyer and seek a solution through the courts.
The Mid Western Health Board is exploring other ways of resolving differences between it and the parents of children in care. It helped set up a group for parents of children taken into care, the Family Rights Group.
In its annual report the board commented on this initiative "Parents in these situations had little understanding of the legal situation. This was not helped by the fact that due to the trauma surrounding these events many felt hostility and alienation towards the services."
The purpose of the group was to contribute to policy regarding children in care and their families, to establish an independent forum for the families and to encourage the development of services for families at risk.
The chief executive officer of the Mid Western Health Board, Mr Denis Doherty, feels that the best solution for most children who are taken into care is that they return to their families, with appropriate support. "In many cases a child is taken into care because of inability to cope, the pressure of modern life on parents, broken relationships, whatever. For a lot of children alternative care isn't, and hasn't been, an improvement. For many it can be worse", he said.
"In taking children into care we are incurring a great deal of extra costs for what can be a net loss in terms of social and health gains. We intervene with children up to the age of 18. We should be asking what we are producing at the end of it. Are they well adjusted young people? We should be looking at the whole system.
"Its often a case of middle class people bringing middle class values to a situation which is not necessarily familiar to us. Unless the father has a propensity to serious violence, or there is a sex abuser in the family, then the system should lean towards reuniting the family. You can't take a more serious step than taking a child into care. All other options must be tried before you take a child into involuntary care ... For example, a child minding service for a couple of hours would provide a release valve."
While arguing that risks should be taken in terms of policy, Mr Doherty also said people working in child protection needed to be given confidence. "They are often very young and inexperienced, and the people advising them are very busy and inexperienced. We need to create time and space to train and motivate social workers to be risk takers. We're not just a child protection agency. We're also a child and social welfare agency. Social workers must not operate in isolation."
Ms Connolly in Coolock would like to see support for families integrated into general child care services. "At the moment you must label yourself a problem to go to a family resource centre. You should be able to go to a place for all families, where you could get your babies jabbed, for example, and there would he a whole range of services available, like social workers, or family therapy. But they should be for all families.
Mr Doherty said the proposed inspectorate for child care services should have a far wider rem it than just instigating inquiries. "It should carry out reviews and provide a basis for resolving disputes of this kind."