The Ombudsman for Children, Emily Logan, is determined that children who do not have parents to fight for them will still be respected and protected by the State, through legislation, policies and public bodies, writes SHEILA WAYMAN
WHEN A parent of two children with special needs has to liaise with people from 24 different health specialities in an effort to secure services, it is clear there is something radically wrong with the system.
It was just one of the 900-plus complaints which the Ombudsman for Children, Emily Logan, handled last year, but it would not be atypical. The burden put on such parents is, she believes, unacceptable.
“The pursuit and organisation of medical and educational intervention for the two children took the form of constantly following up on the transfer of files, co-ordinating the relevant information, arranging and rearranging assessments and tests and generally petitioning for services on their behalf,” according to her recently released annual report for 2009.
Without all that work put in by the parents, it was evident the children would not be benefitting from the same level of services. So it begs the question, what about the children who do not have parents who can fight their cause?
Logan is the watchdog for all our children. Sitting in a colourful suite of first-floor offices on Great Strand Street off Dublin’s north quays, she is emphatic that “your lot in life should not only be determined by your luck in terms of your parents and your family”.
The State has the responsibility, through legislation, policies and public bodies, to ensure the rights and dignity of all children are respected, no matter what environment they are being raised in.
The appalling litany of abuse and indignities against children, which was recited in the Murphy and Ryan reports, has been a watershed in public awareness of these issues.
“People have started coming up to me and saying, ‘I don’t want anything like this to happen in my lifetime’, and that is new. I would not have had that kind of response five years ago,” says Logan (46), who was appointed the State’s first Ombudsman for Children in 2004 and was confirmed for a second six-year term last December.
The public is more interested now in the plight of children in care. “Those groups of children have been hidden for years. It is uncomfortable to hear that information, but I think we will have a better society if we pay attention, not only to those who can fight for themselves, but also the marginalised.”
Her focus for the next year will be on two groups in particular: children with special needs and children who don’t have parents to fight for them. She refuses to bend to the prevailing wind of helplessness that improvements can’t be made without more resources, pointing out that in many cases it is a change of culture and practice that is needed.
We have to move away from the sense of parents being made to feel grateful for services provided, she argues. “It is important that parents, however small their concern, should feel absolutely free to express it without any worry about the ramifications.”
She also believes that often the help is there, but people just don’t know how to avail of it. “When you talk about rights, one of the key things is information. I think you have to go to greater efforts to make sure that people know and understand that they can seek help. It is not enough to put information on a website.”
Many of the complaints her office gets boil down to lack of communication and the absence of inter-agency cooperation. In all the talk about transforming the public service, there is the opportunity to look at these issues, she suggests. So many services are “systems orientated – they expect the children to fit into the system”, as parents of children with special needs know to their cost.
From many years working as a children’s nurse, Logan knows the amount of time, and physical and emotional energy that goes into caring for a child with a chronic illness or a disability. “Then in addition to that there is far too much of a burden placed on parents to try to co-ordinate that care.”
Born in Limerick but raised as the middle child of seven in Raheny, north Dublin, Logan’s interest in children drew her to nursing at Temple Street Children’s Hospital 27 years ago.
“What I hadn’t predicted was that at the age of 19 I would be exposed to the social injustices of the time. It was the early 1980s and there was a lot of social deprivation. One of my more vivid memories would have been seeing children with non-accidental injuries.”
She went on to work in Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London, which was “light years ahead” of the culture in Dublin, where nurses were not encouraged to challenge anything and parents of sick children had very restricted visiting hours.
“I was very conscious of being asked by a consultant my views on a child and I was thinking, ‘Somebody cares what I think!’”
People often ask how she made the leap from nurse to ombudsman. The foundations of that move were laid when she was appointed to an internal investigation team at Great Ormond Street in the wake of the case of Beverley Allitt, a nurse who was convicted in May 1993 of the murder of four children and the attempted murder of three others in Grantham and Kesteven hospital in Lincolnshire. Every paediatric hospital in the UK was asked to review its past critical incidents and Logan helped with that at Great Ormond Street.
She came back to Dublin to become director of nursing at the age of 33 in Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital in Crumlin and four years later moved to become director of nursing at the National Children’s Hospital, Tallaght. Then the job of Ombudsman for Children came up and she successfully negotiated her way through the first two interviews, conducted by a panel of 15 children aged 11 to 17, before the final grilling by three adults and three young people.
Smartly dressed in a classic black suit and white top, she radiates calmness and compassion. She speaks quietly but with assurance. Although she has devoted her entire professional life to children, she has none of her own.
“People say that can be an advantage in this job because I am so idealistic about it,” she remarks. “I love the job. It is a great opportunity to make a difference and to change things.”
She clearly relishes her frequent consultations with children, both in and outside the office, which are an integral part of the job. In addition to the Youth Advisory Panel, which meets in her office every six to eight weeks, many hundreds of children come through the doors each year to share their views and learn about the work that goes on there.
The emphasis is on a welcoming space. Giant bean bags are scattered on the floor in front of windows, which are adorned with yellow, green, red and white notices of key points from the UN Convention on Rights of the Children. There is a small room of computers where children can leave their own text, audio and visual messages for Logan.
A small “cinema”, furnished with an array of brightly coloured cushions, is a particular favourite spot. And, of course, no child’s visit would be complete without food. Tell that to the Comptroller and Auditor General, who queried the office’s spending of money on pizza.
Logan is also involved in outreach work, such as the project she started at St Patrick’s Institution for young offenders last November. The law stipulates that she cannot investigate complaints from young people in prison, so she went to consult with them instead, which she is entitled to do.
“What we are trying to do is highlight the experience that the young people have and bring that voice to the people who have the power to make decisions and make a difference – the Irish Prison Service, the Minister for Justice.” She hopes to publish her report by late autumn.
For the first time recently, Logan expressed concern about the budget for her 15-staff office, which was €2.31 million last year. The increasing number and complexity of complaints – up 13 per cent last year to 922 – drains resources.
The bulk of those complaints (74 per cent) came from parents or extended family and 12 per cent from professionals working with children. They mostly related to health (43 per cent) or education (38 per cent).
“What I am saying is that I think for the work we are doing we are under- resourced. I accept fully that we are operating in a very difficult situation and many organisations could say the same, but I have an obligation to give an account of that.”
Investigations are taking longer and she does not want her office failing to live up to the very principles it espouses – the importance of timeliness and early intervention when dealing with children.
EMILY LOGAN ON . . .
The need for constitutional change:
She believes the recognition of children’s rights in the Constitution needs to be strengthened . . . “if every piece of legislation that is written hereafter is really expected to consider the interests of children.
“We saw that recently in the Civil Partnership legislation which omits references to children that clearly existed in other legislation, about home, about maintenance, succession rights and all of those kinds of those things.
“Are we going to continue to legislate and leave children subject to the political or public mood?”
The difference between health and education complaints:
“In health you have very strong structures of patient services and they have complaint mechanisms. In education the same kind of structures don’t exist. Some complaints around education that come to my office, I think, are more appropriately dealt with and resolved locally.”
WHAT DOES THE OMBUDSMAN FOR CHILDREN DO?
The office, which was set up in 2004, is independent of the Government and reports to the Oireachtas. Its main functions include:
Providing an independent complaints-handling service regarding public bodies.
Promoting children’s rights.
Monitoring legislation with regard to the rights and welfare of children.
Advising any minister on matters relating to children’s rights.
Ensuring that law, policy and practice meet the highest standards and obligations in accordance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
For more information, see oco.ie; tel: 01- 8656800 or freephone 1800-202040; e-mail oco@oco.ie
