CHILDREN AS COMPLAINANTS IN THE HEALTH AND PERSONAL SOCIAL SERVICES IN NORTHERN IRELAND

8 FINDINGS: AN OVERVIEW OF ADVOCACY SERVICES FOR CHILDREN IN NORTHERN IRELAND

8 ADVOCACY SERVICES

Section 2 noted that it may be difficult for children and young people to use the HPSS complaints system effectively. Lay advocacy services may help children and young people to do so especially those children and young people without the support of their 'natural' families. In order to determine the range of lay Advocacy services potentially available to children within Northern Ireland, a survey was carried out of 91 organisations (voluntary, public and private) identified from a mailing list supplied by The Children's Law Centre. (See Annex 4) This cannot be claimed to be an entirely comprehensive list of all organisations offering advocacy within Northern Ireland. However it is a representative of the kinds and broad numbers of organisations that offer these kinds of services. Each of the organisations was asked to fill in a short proforma (see Annex 3) as well as supply any other relevant information on their organisation. There was a total of 49 out of 91 organisations who replied giving a 53.8% response rate.

Organisations used a variety of terms to describe the services they provide; for example advocacy, representation, counselling, advice, support, training, education and information. Only 7 (14.3%) of the 49 responding organisations used the term advocacy in their literature to describe the type of services they provide. Of these, one was a solicitor in private practice while the other 6 were child centred voluntary sector organisations, whose main focus was child protection issues.

Nearly a third of the responding organisations (30.6%) described themselves as providing representation for children. These primarily consisted of solicitors but also some HPSS Trusts acting on complaints lodged by an adult on behalf of the child or young person.

In some cases neither of the terms representation nor advocacy were used, but organisations stated that they worked for children and young people on various issues.

Over a fifth of responding organisations (22.4%) described counselling as part of the services they provide. Whereas 32, nearly two-thirds, (65.3%) provide advice and most also provide support to clients. The issues usually addressed by these services are allegations of abuse against carers or families or educational issues.

Over half of responding organisations (53%) stated that they provide training and/or education as part of their organisation's remit. 12 of these organisations (24%) also provide information to their client base.

19 organisations (38.7%) currently provide advice and/or support in relation to complaints involving children's treatment within The Health and Social Services while a further 10 organisations i.e. 29 of them had done so in the past.

When asked to explain in a little more detail the type of complaints dealt with, a number of common themes emerged. Complaints primarily focused on children's treatment in 'public' care, the type of care accommodation provided the inability of Trusts to meet a child's needs as identified within their care plan, complaints against personnel in particular social workers, lack of resources, delays in services, lack of participation of children in decisions regarding their future as well as how children's opinions are ignored. Newpin summed up the latter theme when they said the advice they gave dealt with "how children are ignored or spoken to disrespectfully that is with a total disregard for or lack of understanding of the child's feelings". This is a recurring theme that adults complaints and worries are addressed but that child's opinions are rarely sought.

Overall, these results demonstrate that there is an emphasis towards child protection and education services in advocacy work in Northern Ireland.