- Volume 1
- Volume 2
-
Volume 3
- Introduction
- Methodology
- Social and demographic profile of witnesses
- Circumstances of admission
- Family contact
- Everyday life experiences (male witnesses)
- Record of abuse (male witnesses)
- Everyday life experiences (female witnesses)
- Record of abuse (female witnesses)
- Positive memories and experiences
- Current circumstances
- Introduction to Part 2
- Special needs schools and residential services
- Children’s Homes
- Foster care
- Hospitals
- Primary and second-level schools
- Residential Laundries, Novitiates, Hostels and other settings
- Concluding comments
- Volume 4
Chapter 14 — Children’s Homes
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Footnotes
Current circumstances
192
Many witnesses reported a life-long history of difficulties coping with everyday life and socialisation. The reported difficulties included isolation, withdrawal, feeling different from their peers, and being unable to show affection to their partners and children. Approximately half of the witnesses reported having been assisted through counselling.
193
This section of the Report has summarised the experiences of the 61 witnesses who reported abuse in Children’s Homes over a period of 73 years, the majority of whom were discharged after 1960.
Footnotes
- Officers – Children’s officers were employed by local health authorities prior to 1970 and were increasingly replaced by social workers thereafter.
- Children Act, 1908 section 64.
- Foster care – previously known in Ireland as ‘boarding out’, also referred to as ‘at nurse’, is a form of out-of-home care that allows for a child to be placed in a family environment rather than an institution.
- Special needs services – includes day and residential schools and facilities designated to meet the educational needs of children with intellectual, physical or sensory impairments. Such services were generally managed by religious congregations and were both publicly and privately funded.
- The categorisation is based on Census 2002, Volume 6 Occupations, Appendix 2, Definitions – Labour Force. In two-parent households the father’s occupation was recorded and in other instances the occupational status of the sole parent was recorded, in so far as it was known.
- Formal child care training was first established in Ireland in the 1970s.
- Primary Certificate – examination certificate awarded at the end of primary school education, it was abolished in 1967.
- Note – a number of witnesses were admitted to more than one Children’s Home, and made reports of abuse in more than one Children’s Home, therefore, the number of reports are greater than the number of witnesses.
- Section 1(1)(a)
- Section 1(1)(b)
- Section (1)(1)(c) as amended by section 3 of the 2005 Act
- Section 1(1)(d) as amended by section 3 of the 2005 Act