Kenneth Burns

An impossible task? Implementing the recommendations of child abuse inquiry reports in a context of high workloads in child protection and welfare

This paper examines the issue of social workers’ caseloads in child protection and welfare in the Republic of Ireland. High caseloads impact on the type and quality of service provided to children and families, and on worker retention and job satisfaction. This exploratory paper examines the limited available evidence on social workers’ caseloads in the Republic of Ireland and presents data on child protection and welfare social workers’ perspectives on their caseloads drawn from a qualitative study. These analyses are set in the context of the Irish State’s commitments since the publication of the Ryan report. A central argument of this article is that the recommendations of successive child abuse inquiries in Ireland have given rise to expectations and demands on child protection and welfare teams that are not possible to meet given the increasing level of referrals and the high numbers of children for whom social workers are responsible.

Representation and participation in child care proceedings: what about the voice of the parents?

Abstract In Ireland, the Constitution guarantees very strong rights to parents and the family, and there has been a long and unfortunate history of failures to adequately protect children at risk. As a result, there has been much discussion in recent years about the need to improve legal mechanisms designed to protect the rights of children. By comparison, little attention has been given to establishing whether the theoretically strong rights of parents translate into strongly protected rights in practice. This paper presents new empirical evidence on the manner in which child care proceedings in Ireland balance the rights and interests of children and parents, including the rates at which orders are granted, the frequency of and conditions in which legal representation is provided, and the extent to which parents are able to actively participate in proceedings. A number of systemic issues are identified that restrict the capacity of the system to emphasise parental rights and hear the voice of parents to the extent that would be expected when looking at the legal provisions in isolation.

Emerging Policy and Practices on Community-Based Research—Perspectives from the Island of Ireland

It is our shared understanding that one of the core roles of higher education is “to reconnect economy, culture, science and society” as argued by the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, and, in doing so, evolve scholarship that creates positive social change through the fostering of collaborative partnerships with community and the wider society. Higher education is going through a period of rapid change as globally the economic recession has caused a shift in conceptual thinking from economic foci toward engagement with community and society (Escrigas et al., 2014; Inman and Schuetze, 2011). It is widely agreed, in principle, that higher education institutions can play a pivotal role in terms of societal wellbeing through their three core activities of research, teaching, and service (also called engagement or outreach). Watson (2007) argues that it is through an intentional civic or community engagement strategy and practice that higher education can impact positively upon community and society.

Editorial: Community and Social Services Responses to Asylum Seekers

University College Cork (College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Science Research Publication Fund)

Child Protection and Welfare Systems in Ireland: Continuities and Discontinuities of the Present

This chapter provides an overview of the Irish child protection and welfare system, and examines continuities and discontinuities between the past and the present. 2012 is chosen as a pivotal change moment around which to critically examine current developments. This year is chosen due to seminal change events which occurred such as a referendum on the rights of the child and the publication of a report that led to the blueprint for the establishment of an independent Child and Family Agency in Ireland. We chart existing histories of child welfare and comment on significant trends and developments. Against the backdrop of this history, we discuss whether, almost 50 years on, the context, appetite for and investment in change, is to be realised in the biggest structural change to children’s services since the development of Community Care under the Health Act in 1970. In undertaking this analysis, we examine five themes: the establishment of a new Child and Family Agency (Tusla); Signs of Safety adopted as a new national child protection approach; changing trends in child welfare as demonstrated by recent statistics, retention rates for social workers in child protection; and dealing with retrospective child abuse disclosures, institutional abuse and Church-State relations.