Sir, - As social work and childcare practitioners, we were taken aback by the "appalled" response of the Minister of State for Children, Mary Hanafin, response to the recent publicity regarding a homeless 16-year-old girl (The Irish Times, July 11th). In particular, we take issue with her apparent assumption that the recent allocation of £1.5 million to services for homeless young people should address the problem. Providing good quality resources for our vulnerable young people is not simply a question of money; it is also a question of how priorities are formed. Cases of vulnerable children and young people appear before the High Court almost daily. In our experience, this is usually in a desperate effort to secure placements for children for whom the available options have proved to be grossly inadequate. For children whose needs are too complex to be met within existing services, there is a paralysis in developing resources that can respond creatively to their individual needs.
The expectation is that children will fit within the existing services rather than the services becoming flexible enough to adapt to their needs. Responses have been driven by knee-jerk reactions, leading to disproportionate amounts of money being spent on expensive provisions that have more to do with containment than with meeting the needs of a young person. What is needed is a co-ordinated range of services which can respond proactively and sensitively.
It must be acknowledged that at least part of the problem lies with the internal Health Board structures. Padraig O'Morain draws attention to "the immensity of the gap between the top echelons of the social services and the frontline workers" (The Irish Times, July 11th). He correctly points out that frontline workers have virtually no influence on how resources are allocated. Social work and childcare practitioners frequently find themselves struggling with their own bureaucratic hierarchical structures. Responses are often forthcoming only when the situation becomes critical.
Frontline workers are well placed to contribute to developing a range of services that can maintain children within their own communities. No attempts to address the massive gap in provision can be successful unless there is a genuine commitment to consult these workers and other key stake-holders, particularly children and parents.
While it will provide scant consolation to the 16-year-old girl and her family, the debate arising out of this case may have positive outcomes. For such children, it is to be hoped that the current interest is not transient. The situation has been critical for some time. All of us - practitioners, managers, policy-makers and politicians - need to be brave enough to address how we have contributed to the failure to provide adequate resources. What is needed above all is the political will to transform services for young people and children in need. The challenge for the Minister is to go beyond pronouncements about money and be prepared to embrace the complexities of both the issues involved and the responses needed.
One step in this process would be for Ministers to meet with frontline workers and children who have experience of available services. We would welcome such a meeting. - Yours, etc.,
Katherine Farrelly, Rachel Rice, Ann Daly, (On behalf of 48 social workers - names supplied), South Circular Road, Dublin 8.