NFCAM

Fears that proposed amendments to Bill will remove permanent fostering

With the Child Protection Bill still to be debated in Parliament, foster carers are anxious about proposals to remove permanent fostering, which they say can give children more stability.

Foster carers are worried that proposed changes to a Bill to protect children will remove permanent fostering, a key feature of the original draft law.

Removing permanent fostering from the Child Protection Bill will leave abused children drifting in a system that has failed to provide stability and permanence, according to the National Foster Care Association.

Association president Paul Gatt said the clause was one of the major breakthroughs of the proposed law, first piloted by former social policy minister, now President, Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca.

Permanent fostering offered the much-needed peace of mind that came with a stable home, particularly in those cases where there was no hope of the children ever returning to their birth parents or where too much time had elapsed, making it traumatic for the child’s foster placement to be disrupted.

“Instead of moving forward, we are regressing,” Mr Gatt said of the changes being proposed.

There should be a cut-off date freeing up children for permanent fostering or adoption, he added, mentioning children who spent 10 years in care and had their case reviewed every six months without knowing where they stood.

In response to Family Minister’s Michael Farrugia’s emphasis on open adoption, Mr Gatt said it was technically allowed by existing laws but, in practice, very few fostered children were freed up for adoption.

“The government rarely pushes for adoption. We know of cases where children were literally abandoned by their biological parents who did not even bother to visit them and, still, the government did not kick-start the process so that the children could be considered for open adoption.”

Children who have experienced traumatic events could only thrive if they were in an environment that offered them the opportunity to build secure attachment relationships with their main caregivers.

Research clearly showed that children who did not have the possibility of developing stable and sustaining relationships during their placements demonstrated emotional, mental health and addiction problems in adolescence and adulthood.

Having a law that established clear time frames within which important decisions had to be taken regarding children and their future was very important, Mr Gatt stressed.

“Children who have been placed in care because of abusive situations in their biological families should be offered the possibility of a stable future with their foster family, or through adoption, without repeated reconsideration of being reintegrated with their biological parents.”

He pointed out that this was the case in other countries such as the US and the UK. For instance, after two years of a child having been placed in care in Norway a plan for their future would be prepared.

“These studies clearly indicate that a sense of permanence through permanent foster care or adoption is crucial to ensure that the disadvantages which these children have suffered because of the traumatic life situations they were exposed to will not continue to haunt them and retraumatise them, as happens in Malta at present.”

Mr Gatt insisted that unless all those involved start viewing children as individuals with the right to be offered a second chance in life and to value the feedback and input of foster carers, foster care in this country would not grow at the required rate.

“The problems of finding enough placements for vulnerable children will persist while the children already in foster care will continue to drift in a system which is failing to secure their future,” he said.

The terminology

Open adoption: a form of adoption in which the biological and adoptive families have access to varying degrees of each other’s personal information and have an option of contact.

Adoption: a process whereby a person assumes the parenting of another, usually a child, from that person’s biological parents and, in so doing, permanently transfers all rights and responsibilities from the biological parent or parents.

Fostering: the provision of a stable family life for children and young people unable to live with their parents at a given point in time.

Long-term fostering: the retention of a child in foster care for an extended period of time.

Permanent fostering: children will stay with their foster family until they reach the age of 18 and, for many, will continue to be part of that family well beyond then.