650,000 calls shows level of trust in Childline

A REPORT by Padraig O'Morain entitled "Value of Childline disputed by health boards" in yesterday's Irish Times suggests the value of the Childline service has been thrown into doubt by the eight regional health boards.

Nine years after Childline's introduction and despite nearly 650,000 calls from Irish children, the health boards and those who comment on statutory services are still, it seems, threatened by the ethos and reality of a service which listens in an unconditional way to children and which believes and facilitates them in challenging adult perspectives and service responses.

The reality is that Childline is the childcare service most used and trusted by children. If commentators are anxious to test its effectiveness, they should perhaps speak with a representative sample of children and young people rather then basing their assessment of the service on a half-baked survey of health boards using narrow problem-focused criteria to interpret incomplete or impressionistic information.

Mr O'Morain informs us that his inquiries were "merely media inquiries rather than a scientific survey". Having looked in more detail at the results of his "survey", I concur with his view. This did not, however, stop him writing a highly critical report or using the platform of Morning Ireland to suggest that Childline was less valuable than people thought and perhaps not as deserving of public support.

Childline made upwards of 400 referrals to the eight health boards last year. More than 1,000 referrals were made by all ISPCC services. This figure represents 15 per cent of all child-abuse referrals made to the health boards.

Childline has brought cases of abuse not previously known to the attention of the health boards often resulting in investigation, case conferences and, occasionally, court proceedings.

The singular focus on "new cases" or "cases of abuse previously unknown" in Mr O'Morain's analysis communicates his poor understanding and that of some of his respondents regarding good-risk assessment or case investigation in child protection cases. Child abuse is not a single incident.

It is often an ongoing dynamic with family circumstances, events and actions changing by the hour. It is fatal that dangerous families or high-risk situations are constantly monitored and that children's feelings as to changing risks in their lives are constantly assessed. The presence of a file on a child or family in a health board does not negate the need for a constant collection of vital information to children at any time.

Mr O'Morain's "survey", flawed and all as it is, (Eastern Health Board figures for 1996 based on two out of nine community care areas Southern Health Board figures not yet available; information elicited on the basis of as far as you are aware type questioning), confirms that Childllne is on occasion the first source of information on child-abuse cases. It fails to communicate, however, the regularity with which Childline and other ISPCC services referrals provide the clarity and impetus for health board action.

Many cases where there is a lack of action by health boards on Childline and other referrals is more a measure of real or apparent legal or resource constraints in the health boards for whom it sometimes appears "significant harm" to a child must be verified and corroborated before action is regarded as possible.

Childline is not a child-abuse referral line. It has listened to more abused children than any other Irish service. Many of these children are simply too frightened or confused to approach inaccessible adult centred face-to-face services. Most children who talk about child abuse choose to remain anonymous, fearing that adult reaction or over-reaction will further rob them of control.

The ISPCC does not share Mr O'Morain's view and the views he imputes to the health boards that worries about early relationships, drug abuse, alcohol, school pressures, bullying, parental separation, pregnancy and other non-child protection issues are too trivial to warrant the help of a caring children's telephone helpline. Neither, it appears, do Irish children.