Breda Lynch: service manager of the Southern Health Board's family welfare conference service, Cork, talks about dealing with vulnerable children
The family welfare conference service offers the families of vulnerable children a forum for decision-making. We deal with children who have placed themselves in vulnerable situations, or children who are in vulnerable situations because of unintentional neglect.
The service was developed in June 2002, in response to the 2001 Children's Act. Under this Act, if a judge feels that a child appearing in court on charges has care and protection issues, the criminal matter can be adjourned and the health board is ordered to organise a family welfare conference. The Act also states that before a child is accepted into a special care unit, a family welfare conference must be held.
This aspect of the legislation has not been brought in yet and we are not getting referrals from the courts. However, the SHB's policy is to use the service prior to any admissions to special care units.
Also, when a health board professional has concerns about the protection and the welfare of a child, he or she can call on us.
My official day is from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and I work with two co-ordinators, Catherine White and Ann O'Sullivan. Our administration assistant is Pam Hanrahan.
My typical day involves meetings promoting and developing the service. I also give training to health board colleagues and outside professionals, such as social workers, public health nurses, psychologists, GPs and agencies like the ISPCC. As the service is new, I also do a lot of work on policy development.
A family welfare conference involves a one-off meeting between those involved in a vulnerable child's life. It is not just blood relatives and extended family, but anyone who is significant in that child's life, such as neighbours or parents of a close friend.
They are there to discuss the day-to-day concerns arising out of that child's life. It might just be a short-term mobilising of family resources in a situational crisis, or a medium-term plan working towards a temporary placement change, or a long-term plan to establish and maintain relationships with a family where a child is placed in the formal care of the SHB.
When there is a problem, a family will normally rally round a kitchen table and trash it out. This service is just adding structure and giving support to families to make decisions and plans. Often families know best. It is quite a radical idea given that the health board, a formal institution, is asking a family to make decisions.
The meeting can take four to five hours and can take place anywhere at any time. The service co-ordinator will invite professionals who are involved in a child's life to attend. We may also ask others to attend, such as domestic violence experts of addiction councillors. They will make presentations of recommendations to the family in plain English. The family are then left alone to make their plan for the child. The co-ordinator will then reconvene the meeting where the plan is negotiated and the initial referrer, the social worker or public health nurse, will accept the plan on behalf of the health board.
I come from a social worker background and I find the job very rewarding. Our role is quite specific and I find it exciting and invigorating because it is so specialised.
The biggest challenge is that the service is new and still evolving. At the moment, it is a very small service delivering to two counties, but when the legislation is implemented, it will open the floodgates. Each case is very rewarding and to date no family has failed to come up with a plan after a conference. We try to keep our focus very much on the child.