Supervised child visits criticised in report as `seriously inadequate'

The supervision arrangements for children in some "supervised access visits" run by health boards are seriously inadequate, according to a report on at-risk children published this morning. In its annual report, the Children At Risk in Ireland Foundation says there is "a real danger of further abuse occurring in these situations.

"Each health board, which has obligations to protect these children, should have a designated corps of approved and suitably trained supervisors available at all times that the courts are likely to allow such [supervised] access," it says. Currently such visits are supervised by child-care social workers employed by health boards.

The report says there is a need for feedback to the judiciary on the outcomes and possible implications for some children of the access visits they permit. "These children, who the courts have already decided need protection, surely deserve better that to be put at risk again."

A spokesman for one of the health boards yesterday said it was probably time to look at the structure of such arrangements.

The foundation also calls for the extension of the remit of the social services inspectorate so that its staff may inspect all care facilities and not just those run by health boards.

There is also concern about young children who have undergone sex-abuse assessments where the assessment is inconclusive. It recommends "an agreed line of support for such children who will have undergone what for some will be fairly confusing experiences".

The report indicates a marginal increase, from 1,790 to 1,801, in the number of therapy appointments between 1999 and last year, while its help-line recorded a 4 per cent increase in its calls, to 2,328 last year. There was also a 100 per cent rise in the number of adult and children's groups availing of the NGO's outreach and training service.

Meanwhile, the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, has published guidelines aimed at people working with or in contact with children. The Guidelines for the Protection of Children in Early Childhood Services was published in Limerick yesterday. The project defines four types of child abuse: neglect, emotional abuse, physical abuse and sexual abuse.