Sir, - The ISPCC's rebuttal (March 5th) of Padraig O'Morain's examination of the number of suspected child abuse cases referred from Childline to the health boards does not alter the central accuracy of your Social Services Correspondent's research. The fact is that when counting actual - as opposed to notional - cases of suspected abuse, the only figures that really matter are those produced by the health boards.
The ISPCC can't have it both ways: it can't, on the one hand, claim it refers "one in six cases" followed up by health boards and, at the same time, dismiss the right of the boards to decide what constitutes a case. The fact that not even one health board found Childline to be anything other than a minor source of new referrals is the most significant finding.
Over the past nine years I have spoken to many health board social workers, in different parts of the country, who confirm the accuracy of Mr O'Morain's results. The "cases" that ISPCC refers to health boards can be as vague as the following: "A child is screaming on the third floor of a block of flats in (name of area)." No social worker is going to drop everything to follow up such a report; it wouldn't even reach query" status.
During the lifetime of Childline I have been personally involved in dealing with about a thousand cases of suspected sexual abuse. The number initiated by children calling Childline, which were then passed on directly to health boards, could be counted on the fingers of one hand.
However, a far greater number involved cases in which adults (i.e. parents) ring Childline once their child had said, or done, something that gave them cause to suspect abuse. The standard (and appropriate) advice given to parents by Childline counsellors is: "Contact the health board". In this sense, Childline is of far greater immediate value to adults than to children, when issues of abuse arise. (The same parents also tend to call agencies such as Women's Aid or rape crisis centres.)
Translating children's expressions of concern into the sort of information that can be usefully used by frontline services on the ground, to make a difference, is a great challenge. While telephone help lines, like Childline, have their place in broadening the scope for children to get help, making unjustified claims for their effectiveness does nothing to further our knowledge base. - Yours, etc., editor,
Irish Social Worker,
114-116 Pearse Street,
Dublin 2.