Roscommon Child Care Case
| Year 3 | | CJ DonohoeK00126283 |
Roscommon Child Care Case | In this assignment I hope to discuss how and why the state failed to address the needs of the children and how they failed to work with the children in the family. I intend to look at key recent child protection policies from the department of children and youth affairs, for example, Children First 2010 and the Child protection and Welfare handbook. |
All the workers who provided services to the family were well intentioned and concerned for the family’s welfare. However, they were constantly preoccupied and cheated by the parents and were unjustifiably optimistic about the parents’ capability to care adequately for their children (Roscommon Child Care inquiry, 2010). They failed to identify the extent and severity of the neglect and abuse suffered by each child from the time of their birth until their admission to care in 2004 (Gibbons, page 96, 2010).
Poor Staff management and Report Writing
It is evident throughout the Roscommon case that there was constant pattern of chop and change of staff members working with the family. The SCW’s did not carry out good practice in relation to briefing the new members of staff due to work with the family. The children needed consistency and in total, six SCW’s were involved with the family from 1989-2004. In 1996, SCW1 was assigned to work on the case. SCW1 advised the Inquiry that, on taking up her appointment, she found a cabinet full of case files (approx. 100). She worked part-time on a week-on/week-off basis and had very little contact with the social worker who covered the other half of her post. SCW2 also referred to the cabinet full of files which required to be sorted through and decisions made in respect of them. How was SCW1 expected to sort through all these files and make important decisions on a week on/week-off basis when she had little to no knowledge on the case background? She advised the Inquiry that she had a very heavy
Roscommon Child Care Case | In this assignment I hope to discuss how and why the state failed to address the needs of the children and how they failed to work with the children in the family. I intend to look at key recent child protection policies from the department of children and youth affairs, for example, Children First 2010 and the Child protection and Welfare handbook. |
All the workers who provided services to the family were well intentioned and concerned for the family’s welfare. However, they were constantly preoccupied and cheated by the parents and were unjustifiably optimistic about the parents’ capability to care adequately for their children (Roscommon Child Care inquiry, 2010). They failed to identify the extent and severity of the neglect and abuse suffered by each child from the time of their birth until their admission to care in 2004 (Gibbons, page 96, 2010).
Poor Staff management and Report Writing
It is evident throughout the Roscommon case that there was constant pattern of chop and change of staff members working with the family. The SCW’s did not carry out good practice in relation to briefing the new members of staff due to work with the family. The children needed consistency and in total, six SCW’s were involved with the family from 1989-2004. In 1996, SCW1 was assigned to work on the case. SCW1 advised the Inquiry that, on taking up her appointment, she found a cabinet full of case files (approx. 100). She worked part-time on a week-on/week-off basis and had very little contact with the social worker who covered the other half of her post. SCW2 also referred to the cabinet full of files which required to be sorted through and decisions made in respect of them. How was SCW1 expected to sort through all these files and make important decisions on a week on/week-off basis when she had little to no knowledge on the case background? She advised the Inquiry that she had a very heavy
References: * A Cox and A Bentovim (2000). ‘Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need and their Families The Family Pack of Questionnaires and Scales’. United Kingdom for The Stationery Office: The Stationery Office Ltd. 23-26. * Department of Health and Children (2011), Children First: National Guidelines for the Protection and Welfare of Children, Dublin: Government Publications * Ferguson, H. (2009). “Child and Family Social Work”, June (2009),pp.471-480, Nottingham: Blackwell Publishing Ltd * Health Information and Quality Authority (2012), National Standards for the Health and Welfare of Children, Dublin: HIQA * Mulkeen, M Gendered Process in Child Protection: ‘Motherblaming’. Irish Journal of Applied Social Studies, Volume 12 * Roscommon Child Care Inquiry (2010), Roscommon Child Care Case: Report of the Inquiry Team to the Health Service Executive, Dublin: Health Service Executive. * Swann, A (1993) "Recognition of Abuse", in Owen, H. and Pritchard, J. (eds) Good Practice in Child Protection, UK: Jessica Kingsley Publishers Ltd. Pgs: 39-56