The Child Care Law Reporting Project (CCLRP) is an independent project established under Section 3 of the Child Care (Amendment) Act 2007, in accordance with the Regulations made under that Act, with the support of the One Foundation, Atlantic Philanthropies and the Department of Children and Youth Affairs.
The aims and objectives of the project are to:
- Provide information to the public on child care proceedings in the courts;
- Conduct research on these proceedings in order to promote debate and inform policy-makers;
- Make recommendations to address any short-comings in the child care system identified by the research;
- Assist in the implementation of these recommendations;
- Promote confidence in the child care system.
The project will provide a measure of the effectiveness of current systems and policies in the area of child protection and that of court administration. Ultimately it will assist the Department in gaining a greater depth of knowledge and understanding of child care cases and it will increase the evidence base on which future policy formulation is based.
The project pursues its aims and objectives by attending the courts where child care cases are heard in order to report on those proceedings while protecting the anonymity of the children and their families. The CCLRP publishes reports of child care cases for the public and all relevant stake-holders, collects and analyses data from the proceedings, publishes reports on the nature and outcomes of the child care proceedings and seeks to promote a public debate on the issues raised through seminars and conferences.
Child care cases, heard mainly in the District Courts, involve applications by the Child and Family Agency for orders to protect children, including supervision orders, emergency and interim care orders and full care orders. Under supervision orders, families receive help and supervision from the Agency; under care orders, the child is placed on either an interim or more permanent basis in care. The cases are heard in camera in order to protect the privacy of the children and their families. There are rarely written judgments in the District Court.
In the second interim report, published last month, it was noted that the project team record the main reason given in support of each application. Often more than one problem is present e.g. the parent may suffer from a disability and abuse alcohol or drugs or both, and the child may suffer both neglect and abuse but only one main reason is recorded. The highest single category, as recorded by the reporters, is parental disability (15%). While physical, mental and intellectual disabilities are not distinguished, the reporting team has observed that most of these parents had an intellectual disability or mental health difficulty and sometimes both.
The second interim report also found that in over 70% of cases the parent, normally the mother, was parenting alone, either because she was single, following the breakdown of a relationship, or because the child’s other parent was dead, in prison or missing. Drug or alcohol abuse or neglect were much more common reasons for seeking a care order in cases involving single parents than cases involving married parents.
While the majority of the respondents in child care cases are Irish (70.4% in the second interim report), this is substantially less than the proportion of Irish-born people in the population as a whole. 7% of the respondents are European, the vast majority of whom come from Eastern Europe. The next largest category is “mixed”, meaning that at least one parent is not Irish. This category includes two or more non-Irish parents from different backgrounds as well as Irish and non-Irish parents. Almost 4% of the respondents are recorded as Irish Travellers.
Overall, one in four child protection cases involve families where at least one parent is a member of an ethnic minority. However the author notes that this represents a very heterogeneous group and the issues that bring them to the child care courts vary widely and so there is no single approach that could reduce this proportion. This raises issues of the need for early involvement of appropriately trained family support workers with immigrant families and community leaders.
The fact that such a high proportion of at-risk children come from ethnic minority communities highlights the need for cultural sensitivity, focused integration policies and cultural mediation services. The Child and Family Agency has introduced a training component for staff on cultural competence so that they may better understand the needs and diversity of the families concerned.
The Child and Family Agency has advised that it brings cases to court solely on the basis of the evidence it has regarding the welfare and protection of children. All of the variations in child care applications and outcomes – regional, ethnic and in family status – that have been identified throughout the course of the project to date require further research to determine the reasons for the variations and to see how more targeted interventions can, where possible, ensure that the level of intervention is the most appropriate.
