Residential childcare workers are paid as little as £2 an hour for some of the work they do, according to the Irish Journal of Applied Social Studies.
Care workers often use their own time to help children who have left care "as adequate resources for after-care are rarely available", says an article by Mr David Williams of Clanog Residential Unit, Dublin, and Mr Kevin Lalor of the School of Social Sciences at Dublin Institute of Technology.
The authors cite research showing that just over half of all care workers and social workers believe they do not have a good working relationship with each other. "Both parties believed this to be somewhat due to the higher status and pay that social workers enjoy over care workers.
"A residential childcare worker may work 64 hours in a week and be paid £2 an hour for 16 of those hours." The authors point out that residential childcare workers deal with children who have "more intolerable problems", such as suffering from the trauma of separation from their family.
pomorain@irish-times.ie