Sick joke on children in government homes

THE EDITOR: I understand that there has been a new directive from the Ministry of Social Services concerning the Government children’s homes. This directive states that no child may go home on a visit to his or her family until the Welfare Officer at the home has made a home visit and submitted a detailed report with certain required information about the home and the family. This is then to be verified by National Family Services, who will then make a decision as to whether or not home visits are to be allowed.

This, allow me to say, is at best ludicrous and at worst a very sick joke playing with children’s lives. I have worked and continue to work with children from these homes. I am aware of the horrendous situations from which many of them came and I know that these situations have often deteriorated. However, I also know that many of the children have relatives, if not parents, in fairly good circumstances, who are willing to take them sometimes for a weekend or for school holidays. These visits are looked forward to by the children with a hunger which is hard for anyone who has not been in that situation to imagine. It is their one chance to live a ‘normal’ life, to belong to someone for a change. It is also a very important way of keeping a link with their family, because that is most likely their only option when they are  required to leave the Government home at eighteen.

I agree completely that children should not be sent home to somewhere unsuitable. But this decision is one that is only realistic when there is enough staff to carry it out. The reality is that the Welfare Officers are overwhelmed and overworked. Asking them to visit and make this kind of report on every single home is a fantasy. Add to that the fact that National Family Services simply doesn’t have the resources to verify this information. How many social workers do they  have to do this kind of work for the whole of Trinidad and Tobago? If the number has reached double figures, that’s plenty. It simply won’t happen. Someone made this decision pretending in his or her head that there was a comprehensive social services structure with adequate manpower and a reasonable staff to client ratio. And that’s why it’s a sick, sick joke, because that picture is far from reality and no one even sees the need to make it a reality.

The homes themselves usually have informal information and a fairly good working idea of the condition of most of the children’s homes and families. Someone from the Ministry should take the time to sit with the workers in each home, gather this information, find out what their usual practice has been re sending children home and make recommendations to modify it if necessary. That is a far more realistic use of time and resources. If anyone doubts the effect this is already having on the children, let me say that I was speaking with some of the children in a home which I visit regularly. They had been aggressive and acting up recently. When I asked why, they said clearly that they had wanted to go home for Easter and hadn’t been allowed to and they were angry about it.

When I explained the Ministry’s new policy to them, they were understandably extremely upset. They felt, and I agree completely with them, that people who did not know them or their lives in any way had no right to make decisions which would affect them so powerfully.
 They felt it was unfair and unjustified. I promised them that I would make their opinions known.

DR KAREN MOORE
Clinical Psychologist