To not even legally record the death of a person in your care … It’s like their life didn’t matter …

If these children are troubled by the time they reach 15, it is most probably because since an early age they’ve been moved from one care home or institution to the next with their feelings of rejection and worthlessness being compounded on a daily basis by the system in which they are forced to live.

My above comment is in relation to ed redbird,s comment about these poor children.

Glyn, the industrial school approach set out to provide for the moral, physical and educational development of child delinquents and the hundreds of children who were abandoned or neglected by their parents. The idea was good at the time but unfortunately, some of the staff in these institutions abused the children in their care with disastrous consequences.n But we have thrown the baby out with the bath water with our present system which achieves none of the objectives of the industrial school system. As we speak, classrooms in state childcare facilities are empty because children won’t get out of bed. Children haven’t returned to centres overnight and have spent the night drinking/ taking drugs/ having underage sex. Staff cannot return them as they are not allowed to touch them. Care staff are out sick because they have been assaulted by children or their relatives. Other staff are afraid to come to work because of threats and intimidation from children. In my experience, most children in state care receive no spiritual, moral, physical or educational development and leave as immature as when they entered. They simply exist. They leave without a trade or life skills. This is not the fault of the staff, most of whom are well-meaning. The children are running the show. The sad thing is that by not being strict, we are exposing these children to more danger as they will do what they want. So Im afraid things are only going to get worse.

I can’t believe what you are saying. You should be ashamed of yourself. I have argued with social workers over the safety of children but they don’t want to know. These children are worth more than a few choice words on the a piece of paper by a lazy and uncaring so called care team. The colluding that goes on is frightening. One death is horrendous 200 is like a holocaust. Do you realise these children died while in care. In care do you understand that?

This is not surprising given that kids, availing of hse outpatient mental health services, and who have a stable and supportive home life, are being failed time and again. The system is indeed corrupt, does not listen to parents nor children and focuses on report writing rather than hands on intervention. A self fulfilling prophecy.

It is appalling to think that so many children have died ”in care” . Where does the buck stop ? I find it incredible . It is not just tragic it is pure neglect , and probably caused by a system that leaves it to others to pick up the pieces …. There fore , no body does ! !

Hi there ed some angry bird you are. I would live to have a chat with you to try and understand where you are coming from regarding your comments.

Agreed TJD Murphy. As someone who was in residential care from ages 11-18, I’m stumped as to how care workers are meant to prevent these tragedies, short of locking the children up (which would just be deferring the problem til they’re 18) The kids I knew just did as they liked, completely indifferent to the ‘sanctions’ the staff were allowed to use. There was no way to make them go to school, never mind counseling, any suggestion of which they’d just laugh at. They could be physically violent to the staff and other kids with no repercussions, apart from punishments they themselves found pathetic like docking their pocket money! And they could disappear for days, with no way of knowing what they were up to. Now I don’t want to generalize but the care workers in my house were far from lazy or indifferent but by the time these children are taken into care, they are often too deeply damaged to respond to any measure softer than locking them up. I think the root of the problem is that children are left in deeply damaging situations in their family homes for far too long because social workers don’t want to or haven’t the resources to intervene except in extreme cases. There shouldn’t be a level of abuse or neglect that we’re willing to tolerate for the greater good of keeping a family together.