Only one centre for children checked on staff

Just one of the 22 children's residential care centres inspected last year had carried out adequate checks on staff before employment, a report to be published today finds.

The 2002 annual report from the Social Services Inspectorate (SSI) also expresses "serious concerns about the young age" of some children in institutional care and lack of access to psychiatric services.

Some nine centres were found to have employed one or more staff for whom there were no record of Garda checks, and seven had employed staff for whom Garda clearance was obtained only after they took up employment.

The report does note that, in general, children in residential care are safe and well cared for.

Inspectors say they were "impressed with the overall warmth and care shown by staff in the majority of centres".

However, it warns: "The manager [of a centre] should satisfy himself or herself that all necessary checks have been carried out before allowing a staff member to work with children.

"The situation in relation to vetting of staff is unsatisfactory and needs urgent attention."

This is the second annual report from the SSI and covers inspections of 22 health board-managed centres, bringing the total number of SSI inspections until July 2002 to 57.

There are 176 children's residential care centres in the State, 102 managed by health boards.

The chief inspector at the SSI, Ms Michele Clarke, said yesterday her staff had by now inspected up to 69 centres in all but agreed that the fact that 31 had never been inspected by them was not good enough.

In the centres examined last year the average number of children living in them was between four and five.

Inspectors were concerned to find the proportion of children in care under the age of 12 had increased from 26 per cent in 2001 to 42 per cent.

"Two of these children were less than five years old," says the report.

The reason given for young children living in residential care was that they were with siblings or that there was a lack of foster care.

The report also raises concerns about continuity of staffing, with seven centres in particular presenting "a high turnover of staff and reliance on agency staff \ poor continuity and consistency for children".

More than half of the managers of the 22 centres were not full appointments or were only operating in an "acting" capacity.

This is regarded as "a serious deficit" in the system.

While praising the warmth and care shown by staff in general the report goes on to say: "There was little evidence of children and young people being assisted directly by their carers in understanding why they were in care and in dealing with their feelings".

There was particular concern about the impact of this deficit in the two Special Care Units, which detain children under special care orders from courts.

While these units have difficulty accessing child and adolescent psychiatric services, there is "a crisis" in obtaining such help for the 16- to 18-year-olds.

"With this age range inspectors have encountered some extremely vulnerable young people for whom a delay in access to services has seriously aggravated their difficulties.

"SSI recommend that health boards review this situation and work towards an early resolution," the report says.

There are currently 4,500 children in care, with 13 per cent in residential care centres.