NCJ Number
220137
Journal
Child and Youth Services Volume: 29 Issue: 1/2 Dated: 2007 Pages: 139-164
Date Published
2007
Length
36 pages
Annotation
This article provides a personal series of reflections on the current debate on risk and accountability in child protection and child and youth care as child protection strives to come out of a period of volunteerism and professionalize itself.
Abstract
Irish identity is changing and the fall off in both male and female numbers of religious orders has meant a profound shift in the terrain of volunteerism and professionalism. It is proving more and more difficult to attract volunteers into child and youth care and child protection and, indeed, an argument rages as to the place of volunteers in the disciplines of child protection and child and youth care with some arguing for their continuance and others believing such work should be the preserve of professionals. The relationship between the risk culture, actual cases of malpractice, the scapegoating culture, the collective sense of non-responsibility, and media sensationalism is becoming more dominant and complex, and in the middle of it all, are the families in distress and youth at risk. At the end of 2001, there were approximately 5,500 children in care in Ireland but the number of children’s residential centers has decreased from 176 in 2002 to 154 in 2003. In addition, the Irish Association of Care Workers, representing front-line social care practitioners and in decline for some years, disbanded in 2005, a passing that went virtually unnoticed. This article attempts to examine the questions of how this came to pass at a time seen as the key time in the early 1970s for child and youth care in Ireland. Notes, references