Vulnerable young people who leave the care system at 18 still need support
LIKE ALL young people her age, Barbara is ambitious. The 20-year-old Dubliner wants to go to college, get a job and be successful. But most of all she wants to own her own home and never go back to sleeping rough.
“I never really had a home growing up,” says Barbara, who was taken into care when she was nine years old and regularly moved around different foster families and residential care homes during her teens.
“You are not settled. You feel different to other children in school. You feel like an alien because you know they have families. Then when you turn 18 and you get out, it’s really difficult,” she says.
“I was very emotional and angry. I dropped out of college, went out drinking and ended up homeless,” she says.
Within a year of leaving her care home, Barbara was sleeping rough on the ground floor of a city centre apartment block. She also stayed in an emergency hostel where, she says, “drugs were handed around like smarties”.
Barbara's story is not unique. The last major study documenting what happens to vulnerable children who leave the care system, Left Out On Their Own,which was compiled by the NGO Focus Ireland in 2000, found one-third of people experienced homelessness within six months of leaving care.
The dangers for vulnerable young people living on the streets were also laid bare in a recently published report into the death of 18-year-old mother-
of-two Tracey Fay. Tracey’s life descended into a blizzard of drug addiction, prostitution and rough sleeping when she left the care system. She died of a drug overdose in a disused coal cellar in 2002.
“The numbers falling into homelessness are probably not as high now as back in 2000 when the whole care system was breaking down. But there is still no proper tracking system yet,” says Orla Barry, director of services at Focus Ireland, which provides aftercare for young people leaving care.
Aftercare services typically include transitional housing, mentoring from a dedicated social worker and educational support to help people leaving the care system to adapt to adulthood. For those children deemed to be in need of the service provided by the Health Service Executive (HSE), mentoring usually starts six months before a child leaves care to help their transition.
“In most families, children don’t move out of the house and stop getting help and support from their parents when they turn 18,” says Jennifer Gartland, director of the Irish Association of Young People in Care.
“For children in the care system, the State is their parent and so they need the ongoing help that aftercare provides them with,” she says.
But under current Irish legislation there is no automatic legal right for children to receive aftercare services. The 1991 Childcare Act only says the HSE “may provide aftercare services” where needed.
This leaves it up to the HSE to decide when a child should receive aftercare services, says Gartland, who is supporting a campaign led by Focus Ireland to amend the law to mandate the HSE to provide aftercare to all who request it.
“There is a real opportunity to change the law at the moment because the Childcare [Amendment] Bill is passing through the Oireachtas. If we miss this opportunity it won’t come around for years,” says Gartland, who points to disparities in the provision of aftercare across the country.
“It’s a post code lottery. In north Dublin services are good while there is virtually no aftercare services in other areas,” she says.
Barbara, whose life quickly spiralled out of control soon after she left care, credits her recovery to her decision to maintain contact with Focus Ireland’s aftercare services when she went off the rails.
“At 18 I was naive. I wasn’t mature enough to make good decisions. I think without my aftercare worker, I wouldn’t have got back on track. She helped me a lot. She helped me organise accommodation and I met aftercare workers almost every day at cafes,” says Barbara, who has recently moved back into a Focus Ireland aftercare centre in Dublin.
“I have my own private room with a kitchen here at the aftercare centre and it’s very safe,” says Barbara, who believes every child leaving care should have the option of accessing aftercare up to the age of 21.
Karen Doyle, assistant project leader of Focus Ireland’s north Dublin aftercare services, says it’s a question of life and death for some of the most vulnerable young people leaving care, who end up living on the streets. She also stresses the importance of providing a flexible aftercare service, which enables teenagers to get back into a programme if they drop out after leaving care or even if they initially refuse a service.
“It’s really a huge challenge to keep the most vulnerable young people engaged.
“The risk is that if they don’t request aftercare when they leave care at 18 years, a time when many young people are so glad to leave behind social workers and the care system, then they often can’t access support a year or two later when they need it,” says Doyle.
Minister for Children Barry Andrews told The Irish Timeslast week he doesn't think a change in the legislation is required because the HSE is already mandated to provide a service if it is deemed necessary.
However, campaigners believe the Minister fears providing a specific legal right to the services because this would have serious resource implications for the State.
With the Childcare (Amendment) Bill due back in the Dáil shortly, they have only a few weeks left to change his mind.
PROVISION OF AFTERCARE SERVICES:
Campaigners say aftercare services are provided on an ad hoc and inconsistent basis due to the lack of an automatic legal right to support under legislation. This gives HSE Local Health Offices (LHO) considerable freedom in deciding how to allocate resources and implement policies. An as yet unpublished audit of aftercare services in May 2009 found 29 LHOs provide aftercare services and have dedicated aftercare staff. Three LHOs had no dedicated aftercare staff.
Number of people receiving aftercare in 2008
Carlow/Kilkenny: 33
Clare: 34
Cavan/Monaghan: 9
North Lee: 59
North Cork:18
South Lee:27
West Cork: 16
South Dublin:13
Dublin North Central: 53
Donegal: 32
Dublin north: 31
Dublin north west: 53
Dublin south city: 13
Dublin south east: 28
Dublin south west: 32
Dublin west: 14
Galway: 51
Kerry: 20
Kildare/west Wicklow: 54
Limerick: 45
Laois/Offaly: 14
Louth:43
Longford/Westmeath: 28
Meath: 30
Mayo: 33
Roscommon:16
Sligo/Leitrim/
West Cavan: 36
North Tipperary: 22
South Tipperary: 23
Wicklow: 30
Waterford: 53
Wexford: 16
Source: Review of Adequacy of Services for Children Families 2008