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Kids in care more prone to mental illness
Children in the care of the Irish state are four to five times more likely to suffer from mental health issues than other children, according to an expert on child mental health.
Prof Fiona McNicholas said it was also known that the longer children were in State care, the more serious mental health issues they tended to suffer.
She said the Children's Rights Bill would be a vital step forward in enabling mental health practitioners and community carers to address the mental health rights of Irish children in care – especially when it comes to children who are being considered for adoption or fostering.
Professor McNicholas, who is head of child psychiatry at UCD, will be addressing the issue of mental health in children in care at the forthcoming National Healthcare Conference which takes place in Dublin today.
"People sometimes forget that every child also has a right to good mental health and that the presence of a secure and loving family is a vital component within this," said Prof McNicholas.
She believes that in cases which involve adoption or fostering, the Children's Rights Bill will empower mental health practitioners – in conjunction with their community care colleagues – to steer the authorities towards decisions will which will be in the better interests of children.
"Sometimes when a child is in care, the ongoing intervention of birth families in the child's life is not always beneficial. This Bill will give mental health practitioners a chance to make that case – alongside community carers – when it comes determining the best way forward for the child."
"Practitioners are not seeking to separate children from birth families, but only to uphold their rights in cases where contact has been obviously damaging and where the child's own rights are being abused as a result."
In the past, those engaged to help children have often been hamstrung by the prevailing rights of the birth parents to intervene at regular intervals in their child's lives, however detrimental this might be for the child, Prof Mc Nicholas said.
The Conference is being organised by Investnet Ltd.
Niall Hunter
27 September 2012
