Chapter 8 — Cappoquin

Neglect

There was very little communication between the two homes. Although she reported directly to Sr Callida, she rarely saw her. There was no formal system for staff meetings or meetings to review the children’s progress. She tried to talk to Sr Callida about the problems but she was not willing to listen. She also recalled that, during this time, there was no support from social workers for the staff and children.

She was also aware that children were experimenting with each other sexually and reported this to Sr Callida. She felt there was a need to give the children some education in the facts of life, to make them more aware, and she communicated this to the Resident Manager, but this did not happen.

Ms Waters gave an example of one incident where three children from the home – two boys and a girl – were alone in the fields adjoining the home: I remember ringing Sr Callida and, you know, my worries about the girl being down with the boys and she just kind of – it came up in the conversation I said, "what about if the girl gets pregnant?" And she kind of laughed at me and said, "it wouldn’t be you that made her pregnant." I wasn’t getting anywhere ... I went down through to the fields ... it was a very wet evening, and I had difficulty in walking through the wet – the grass was very high, it was all wet. I went down and I brought her up and the two lads went off, you know. But it was with great difficulty, she was rude and nasty to me now, but she did come up with me.

Although she spoke of her concerns to the girl’s social worker, she received no help or support from her and was left to handle the situation herself.

She said she was aware that there was a lot of drinking going on in Group Home A. Parties were held in the home, and former residents and student priests came and stayed overnight. This practice was not allowed in the home in which she was in charge, as she simply did not allow it to happen. In her opinion, the children in Group Home A were not being adequately supervised and the staff were very young: Well there was a lot of, there was a lot of drink going on, you know ... You know, I was never in the parties, but the gossip went on that they would be drinking in the house and there would be people coming visiting and there was drinking. Not in Group Home B but in Group Home A. I witnessed Sr Callida coming ... into Group Home B at one stage and she had drink ... Her voice was slurred, you know, and things like that.

She described an occasion soon after the appointment of Sr Serena as Reverend Mother to Cappoquin: I remember that day, Sr Serena had just started, she was just made Reverend Mother and she had visited Group Home B that evening, we arranged that she come and have tea with the kids and staff and Sr Callida came in that evening. The kids had just left the table and she came in and she was clearly under the influence of drink when she came in.

She did not discuss Sr Callida’s obvious intoxication with Sr Serena at the time. It was not an isolated incident, because she had witnessed Sr Callida’s intoxication on other occasions. She said that the staff and children discussed Sr Callida’s drinking with her and amongst themselves, and that it was a problem throughout Sr Callida’s time there, ‘No, I don’t ever remember a time when it wasn’t a problem’.

The problems continued, and both staff and children were unhappy. She described how it had an impact on the children at the time: Kids, they could get high and you know, you felt you had no control. Because everybody was kind of – everybody was upset and there wasn’t consistency from management down, you hadn’t the consistency. The staff were young and they were going to college and doing exams ... and things like that.

Eventually, in the late 1980s, Ms Waters wrote a long and detailed letter to Sr Callida, raising a number of points regarding the care of the children, staff communications, timetables and rostering, and general management issues: I had to do something and I knew the right way to go through it first, I couldn’t do anything, without sending a letter to Sr Callida, she wasn’t willing to listen to me. The next thing was to send her a letter. I put an awful lot – I thought about maybe there was 12 months thinking about that, you know. I put an awful lot of thought into it.

She requested a meeting to discuss the matters raised in her letter. She did not get a response to her letter, and no meeting was forthcoming. Sr Callida appeared insulted that she would make such a request, and her relationship with Sr Callida deteriorated further.

She then contacted the Reverend Mother, Sr Serena, in the convent, and again raised the issues she had highlighted in her letter to Sr Callida. She told the Committee: eventually I got a meeting. I went to Sr Serena and we met, Sr Serena, Sr Callida and I, we met in the office in Group Home B. But it wasn’t a successful meeting, because Sr Callida, she did a lot of crying and she was going to open the door and a few times Sr Serena said to her, "Callida, come back and sit down". It came to nothing, we got nowhere.

Sr Serena then held a staff meeting, where some of the staff members who had been complaining did not support Ms Waters and so, according to Ms Waters, Sr Serena felt she could not take the matter any further.

Ms Waters said, ‘I just couldn’t stick it any longer, I couldn’t cope any longer’ so she went directly to Sr Viola15 who was the Provincial and the person to whom Sr Serena was ultimately accountable. She raised the contents of the letter she had written to Sr Callida with Sr Viola. Sr Viola came to Group Home B a month later and interviewed all the staff who, this time, were prepared to confide in her. Her findings resulted in the dismissal of Sr Callida.

The only conclusion that can be drawn from the picture painted by these witnesses is one of a complete breakdown of communication between management and staff. Management structures, timetables and proper rostering were simply not in place. This had a detrimental effect on the daily lives of the children.

This disorganisation was confirmed by the evidence of Mr Lloyd,16 Resident Manager from the early 1990s. He described what confronted him when he arrived to replace Sr Callida. He found the buildings were very run down. Lots of very young children were in the Centre. Few, if any, records were kept of the children. The financial records were in disarray. The previous Resident Manager had allowed children to sleep in her bedroom. This practice was absolutely inappropriate, and he considered there were no circumstances in which a young person should ever stay in a staff member’s room. Children and staff told him that children had been slapped regularly and inappropriately. When he first arrived he witnessed a staff member slapping a child and immediately banned the practice. The centre was chaotic; there were staff shortages, impossible rosters and very low morale. Relatives would turn up drunk. There were no boundaries for the children and they had no structure in their daily lives. He set about dealing with the problems.