‘Jersey’s children are a lot safer than they were’

In the wake of the highly critical Independent Jersey Care Inquiry report – which found that children in the Island may still be at risk – Susan Devlin said that safeguarding measures have improved in recent years.

But she admitted that persistent problems, including the recruitment of staff, needed to be addressed.

Ten ‘fundamental failings’ were highlighted in the inquiry’s report, including that staff had been ushered into senior roles that they were not equipped to fill and that children had in the past been ‘shamefully’ blamed rather than their alleged attackers.

And the Island was also criticised for not having the ‘political will’ to properly enact children’s safeguarding laws.

Ms Devlin, who has worked in Children’s Services in Jersey for two years, said that the recommendations made in the report were probably based on a 2015 audit of Children’s Services and that improvements had already been made since that time.

‘I think it is relatively current, but we are now in July 2017 and things have moved on in that time,’ she said.

‘I can’t give a guarantee that every child in Jersey is completely safe – nobody can – but I think they are a lot safer than they were.’

She added that more stringent checks on who worked with children meant that the risk of abusers slipping through the net had decreased. And she said that while it was still difficult for children to report abuse, carers were now better trained to spot distressed children potentially at risk of abuse.

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