By Richard Digard
FOR an island that takes the welfare of children so seriously, there’s something particularly unsatisfactory about the latest revelations that the children’s social care services was running three unregistered care homes that were each providing sub-standard levels of support for the youngsters they were supposed to be looking after.
It’s not just the Jersey Care Commission’s independent findings themselves – they’re disturbing enough. But what’s really lacking is context. The why and how such a situation could arise in an island that’s so hyper-sensitive to child welfare that government commitment to it is stated on every possible occasion.
That’s why, having gone extensively through the coverage and reports of this latest ‘scandal’, I can’t shake off the feeling that something vital is being overlooked.
The first is the issue of registration itself. As specialist advocate Darry Robinson said, operating like that in other jurisdictions is a criminal offence and should be so in Jersey as well.
That’s not a surprising view. Imagine the reaction if a business or individual was running an unlicensed and unacceptable children’s home – the demands for action would, rightly, be instant and voluble.
Yet in this case, a government department cheerfully sets up establishments without the necessary mandatory (and sometimes discretionary) conditions for the delivery of care.
How could this be? Many staff in the department would know such a thing is illegal in the UK, so why do it here?
The other issue is the children themselves. For all the words and reports about the failures and the lack of attention to regulations, there’s nothing about the youngsters, how many were involved – or where they are now that their unregistered homes have been closed.
The closest we get to them is in a letter from Children’s and Education Minister Inna Gardiner responding to the Children’s Commissioner following the latest inspections. The reply itself is curiously neutral, given the significance of the commission’s findings.
Nevertheless, Deputy Gardiner says that there have been ‘rare’ occasions when ‘a very small number’ of children have had to be cared for outside a registered establishment. That, I suppose, is understandable. Then, more revealingly, she adds: ‘This has been a necessary urgent response to remove a child from a situation of actual, or risk of, significant harm.’
For me, that’s the nub of the latest upset that Advocate Robinson says could lead to another care inquiry and all that implies.
The central issue, surely, is whether the children accommodated in the unregistered homes were more or less at risk than they would be had they been allowed to remain at home. Yes, the actions taken fell well-short of the standards required, but how were the youngsters treated? Was Deputy Gardiner’s department right to take the action it did or not? Should it have acted earlier to ensure it had enough registered accommodation available and what is – or isn’t – it doing to prevent these emergency situations from developing in the first place? Or again?
These are significant questions, yet Deputy Gardiner didn’t feel the need to use a force majeure argument to justify what led to not just one but three unregistered care homes being used and, as I understand it, operated by States’ employees.
That’s a lot of effort and property for ‘a small number’ of children on a ‘rare’ occasion.
As a result, the most curious aspect of this is how de-personal it all feels, how detached from the children it’s supposed to be helping and protecting.
For instance, I’ve struggled to find any reference to how many youngsters Jersey has in care, whether that’s getting better or worse, or what it is that leads children to be taken away from their parent/s for their own good.
The Independent Children’s Homes Association, in its Review of Children’s Homes in Jersey from 2021, says the island has a child population (aged 0-19) of approximately 23,000. Of these, around 11,000 fall in the 10-19 age group, which applies to most children in residential care.
‘Despite this relatively small cohort of children, Jersey operates four children’s homes, one secure unit, two supported accommodation homes and two short-break homes for children with complex needs. This equates to a potential provision of 24 permanent beds, nine short-stay and four secure beds. In addition to this, several children are placed off-Island in the UK. While this is a massive reduction in placements on previous years, the purpose of those homes providing these placements remains unclear,’ it said.
That alone is disturbing. Yet since it was written, two of the unregistered homes were opened in December 2022 and the third in January with, as yet, no explanation of how or why this was necessary.
Look at the Jersey Children’s Social Care Service plan for 2021-23 and there’s 40-odd pages of civil service-speak on ‘promoting outstanding practice’ – ‘We will do this by embedding our practice standards into all that we do, which includes but not limited to, overarching practice principles and good practice standards…’ – but nothing I can see that says what they’ve achieved in, er, practice.
Yes, there are some key performance indicators provided, but if anyone can make sense of them, do please drop me a line.
As a result, the overwhelming sense you’re left with is that ‘putting children first’ means demonstrating that everything is done by the book, so the service is blameless, but which has the effect of underplaying the outcome and consequences on the youngsters and families who need that service.
Jersey needs to know how many children and young adults are in care, why they are there, how that compares with other jurisdictions, what led to them being parted from parents and whether the huge sums being spent are actually improving the situation year on year. Without that focus on the individuals themselves, Jersey’s child-first policy risks becoming a tick-box academic exercise aimed at protecting the Island’s reputation rather than the vulnerable themselves.
What made the original historic child abuse inquiry so powerful is that we heard directly from what are now called care receivers.
For the first time, their voices were heard. On the evidence of the latest disclosures, today’s generation of vulnerable youngsters have become invisible once again.
