Making children heard: A day in the life of a guardian ad litem

"This is not a nine-to-five job," says guardian ad litem Eugene Bigley.

“I’ll tell you about Thursday”.

Sitting in his office in Smithfield, he opens his laptop and examines his notes. Unlike with other professionals, it is not possible to shadow a guardian ad litem. They are appointed by judges to represent the views and best interests of children who have been taken into the State's care. Their meetings with children, their families, foster carers and other practitioners are necessarily confidential.

Bigley's Thursday began at 7.30am, when he caught up on emails and read reports from the Child and Family Agency Tusla, received in advance of a child protection case due in the High Court later that day. An "extremely vulnerable" young person, who had been in secure care, was due to be discharged.

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“The court wants to make sure when the child leaves, they’ve got the services they need and there is a really good plan for the child to be integrated back into the community, so it was about going in and advising the court about that young person.”

With a background in social work, Bigley began working as a guardian in 2011 and co-founded the Independent Guardian Ad Litem Agency in 2014. He is assigned to an average of 14 families at any one time, dealing with up to 35 children.

At 9.45am, he met his solicitor and updated his instructions to him.

“This young person has had a difficult life,” he says. “The important thing for me was to get a really good report into the court and get those recommendations heard.”

The case was down the list, so he spent some time waiting to be called. Afterwards, he was satisfied with the outcome. He spoke with his solicitor again, before heading to a planning meeting for a young child in care.

Bigley says there was a chance for reunification in the case and there were many professionals at the 90-minute meeting, including an advocate for the mother.

“I contributed on behalf of the child, to make sure that the reunification plan was centred very much on the assessments to date, but also to ensure clear communication with mum around what would be involved in looking after the child.”

Plans for a brief lunch break were dropped when Bigley encountered a vulnerable couple whose children were in care.

“They wanted to talk to me and I wouldn’t walk away. It is those informal moments sometimes that people appreciate,” he says.

He then went to a pre-birth child protection case conference, to talk about plans for the imminent arrival of a new sibling to a family group he is assigned to. The focus was on plans for telling the siblings about the birth, how to allay their anxieties and fears, but also to help them welcome the baby into their lives.

After that, he visited three children in interim care due to neglect. He spent time with them, observing them in their foster placement, speaking to them about their lives and discussing issues with their foster carers.

He came away with specific inquiries he needed to make with the children’s social work team.

His final tasks involved report writing; one due for the following week and another for court the following day. He says he is worried a particular teenager is not engaging and may end up homeless.

Asked about lunch, he says he got something to eat around 7.30pm. He admits to being “a bit of a workaholic”.

He works five days a week, plus Sunday, which he devotes to record keeping and invoicing. But in reality, he is always on.

“If you get a phone call from a 15-year-old at 6.45am or at eight o’clock at night, you are going to answer that phone because you don’t know what distress that young person might be in,” he says.

“It might only take a few minutes to calm them down.”