4,228 entries for Historical Context

Furthermore, even when a report is available the data it is not always comprehensive. For example in the 1978 Department of Health Report on children coming into care there is no information on 287 children of unmarried mothers awaiting adoption who were admitted to St Patrick’s Home during the year 1978 (p 3). Nor does the report include reasons for admission for 192 children who were under supervision ‘at nurse’ in the Eastern Health Board.

The following section attempts to overcome these limits in available data and roughly map the changes in provision of childcare in relation to factors such as type of care, gender, and reason for admission and type of care order. Where possible the most up-to-date categories used by the Department of Health are used in order to provide a sense of continuity over time. Where this has not been possible, older and now abandoned categories have been recoded in a logically consistent fashion in order to correspond with the newer categories. Unfortunately, such recoding was not always possible and many figures consist of a range of categories used from year to year making for cumbersome interpretations of the collated data; however, it is also emblematic of the inconsistency of the recording (or non-recording as often is the case) of such data on children in alternative forms of care.

As can be seen from figure 16 below, the number of children in foster care has increased in general over the past 35 years. In particular, general foster care has steadily increased over the years while private fostering (those ‘at nurse’) has been overtaken largely by fostering by a relative.102 The last 10 years has also seen the creation of a very small number of special foster care and pre-adoptive placements. Figure 16: Number of children in foster careby type of foster care, stock figures, 1970-2005

Since 2002 the Department of Health has subdivided the reasons for children being taken into care into three categories: (1)abuse; (2)child-centred problems; (3)family-centred problems.

To ease interpretation, these three subgroups have been retained and where possible data from previous annual reports has been placed into these categories based upon similarity103. Figure 17 below shows where abuse was cited as the primary reason that children were admitted to care from 1978 to 2005. By far the largest increase has been in the number of children entering care due to ‘Neglect’ from around 500 in 1980 to nearly 2,000 in 2005. Figure 17: Primary reason for admission to care, stock figures for abuse, 1978-2005

As explained earlier, the primary reason children were taken into care over the past 35 years were categorised as the parent’s inability to cope or care for their children (see timeline). Again, the most recent (2005) categories are used in figure 18104 below to show the ‘family problem’ reasons for which children were taken into care; one significant shift is the increase in the number of children taken into care in response to the ‘abuse of drugs and/or alcohol’ by a family member since the mid-1990s (shown in dark green). Figure 18: Primary reason for admission to care, stock figures for family problms, 1978-2005

Most children taken into care for ‘child problems’ were categorised as either abandoned or rejected by their parents105 or were awaiting adoption106; a sizeable proportion were also recorded as being ‘out of control’. Figure 19: Children in care by primary reason for admission to care, stock figures for child problems, 1978-2005

There is no data available on family forms in the annual reports for 1978-81; however, there is evidence from the statistics on reason for admission, that children of single mothers or lone parent families in general are over-represented in the care system. For example in 1978, 389 children were reported to be taken into care due to being the child of an ‘unmarried mother, unable to care’ and in 1979, all children awaiting adoption (257) were apparently children of ‘single mothers’. Figure 20 below shows the family structures of children in care from 1982 to 2005. Lone parents consistently make up the largest category followed by married couples (either living together or apart). Figure 20: Children in care by family structure, stock figures, 1982-2005

Classifications and counting methods vary considerably from year to year in the annual reports published by the Department of Health on children in care. Such frequent, and for the most part, unexplained changes complicate what ought to be the rather basic task of outlining and interpreting trends in the provision of alternative care for children over time. However, the different ways in which children are categorised and their families categorised also serves to illuminate the perceived ‘problem’ of non-nuclear family forms; in particular, unmarried mothers and their ‘illegitimate’ children. The timeline shown below in figure 21 is illustrative of the many changes in categorisation used in the Department of Health reports over the period 1978 to 2005. The excessive focus on unmarried mothers can be seen by mapping the descriptions of such women over time in relation to the reason their children were taken into care (shown in black) as well as the descriptions of the child’s ‘status’ or family background/type (shown in red). Figure 21: Changes in Department of Health Annual Reports Disclosure, 1978-2005

For example, according to the Department of Health Report, Children Coming Into Care 1978, the first such national survey of children in care of the health boards, the primary reason children were taken into care or placed under supervision107 for that year was that they were children of ‘unmarried mothers who were unable to care’ (p 4). This category represented around a third (33.8 percent) of all children taken into care by the State and is only followed by the ‘short-term illness of parent/guardian’ which represented 16.5 percent of all children taken into care in that year. Some other noteworthy reasons for children being taken into care that same year include: unsatisfactory home conditions (8.6 percent); parent/guardian in prison/custody (1.8 percent); travelling family (3.4 percent).

In 1979, once again children of single mothers are recorded as being the single largest group of young people placed in care. Correspondingly, the most common reason for children being taken into care was ‘single mother, unable to care’ (28.5 percent). However, three other primary reasons for admission were also focused on single parents, including: single mother, child-awaiting adoption (7.9 percent); parent deserted, remaining parent unable to care (10.5 percent); parent dead, remaining parent unable to care (6.2 percent).

Taken together, children of single parents in these four categories represent over half (53.1 percent) of all children in care of the State. In addition to the focus on single parents, two new reasons for admission listed in the 1979 report reinforce the moral judgment of parents: marital breakdown (5.8 percent); inadequate parent (12.5 percent).

The 1979 report also includes an interesting survey of ‘underlying family problems’. Such additional descriptive information is rare in Department of Health Reports and provides an insight into the reasoning behind children being taken into care; once again it highlights the emphasis placed on the perceived ‘problem’ of single mothers. According to this survey, by far, the leading underlying family problem was perceived as ‘parental inadequacy’ (47 percent). Table 13 of the report cross tabulates the underlying family problems with the primary reason children were taken into care. Almost 20 percent of children taken into care were categorised as the children of ‘single mother(s), unable to care’ due to being ‘inadequate parent(s)’. Despite the fact that the report presents unusually detailed information on why children were taken into care, it is nonetheless limited by tautological thinking, as the second largest group in the table are described as children of ‘inadequate parent(s)’ whose underlying problem is ‘parental inadequacy’. Fifty seven children were reported to be living in a home with an ‘unsuitable moral atmosphere’; representing 1.7 percent of the children in care.

The 1979 report also provides more detail than many of the other Department of Health Reports on Children in Care in the last 30 years in its explanation for some of the reasons children were placed in residential care. By far the two primary reasons were that the child had two or more siblings already in care or that there were no suitable foster parents available. The number of children placed in residential care for ‘other’ reasons was also quite substantial. These other reasons were primarily that the child was either born in an institution or was born to a ‘single mother undecided about caring for child’. Interestingly, one case was recorded in which the mother was deemed to be ‘disturbed’ and another was recorded as having been a child ‘born during honeymoon’.

The 1980-81 report continues in the reporting of ‘underlying’ family problems such as ‘inability to cope’ and ‘marital disharmony’. However, a number of new family problems appear in the report including: drug addiction; promiscuous environment; over protective.