Delays in care-order judgments are a cause of significant distress for both children and their foster and biological families
We have grown accustomed to hearing that our courts are overloaded. That there are court delays. Social workers are stretched thin, juggling impossible caseloads. The system is under strain. And when systems strain, people fall through the cracks.
A few days ago, we learned that some of those people are among the most vulnerable in our society: children awaiting care orders. Figures obtained from the Ministry for Social Policy and Children’s Rights show that 47 long-term care-order decisions are currently pending in court, affecting 71 children. Half of those cases have been awaiting judgement for more than a year. These are not mere statistics but represent children living in prolonged uncertainty – unsure of whether the adults around them can provide the stability they urgently need.
Care orders exist to protect children at risk of significant harm by placing them in safer, more stable arrangements, often with foster families. Yet, foster care advocates say the situation has worsened since a 2020 legal amendment removed a previous deadline for such decisions.
John Rolè, of the National Foster Care Association Malta, has spoken about the stress these delays cause – not only for children but also for foster and biological families. While the law allows fostering to become permanent after two years, that period begins only once a long-term care order is issued. If the order itself is delayed for years, so too is the child’s chance at permanence.
Uncertainty becomes institutionalised.
Concerns have also been raised about the way supervised access visits are conducted. Counselling psychologist Claire Francica, who specialises in trauma and is regularly appointed by the family court, questioned whether the current system sufficiently safeguards children’s emotional well-being.
She describes a process in which children are repeatedly separated from foster carers, collected by social workers who may be unfamiliar to them, and transported to centres for contact with their biological parents. In some cases, she warns, the experience can be retraumatising – particularly for children still processing instability and for parents struggling emotionally when a child resists contact.
If the root problem is a lack of resources or specialised expertise, the solution must be systemic. Francica proposed structured internal training and certification for professionals involved in supervised access visits. She has also called for clearer consequences when biological parents refuse to engage with support plans, while acknowledging that decisions about access must always prioritise the child’s best interests.
The ministry has insisted that supervised access visits are carried out according to court decrees, within clearly defined parameters to safeguard minors, and that staff receive appropriate training. It has also been argued that the removal of access should not be used as punishment for non-compliance by biological parents.
These assurances matter. But so do the testimonies of professionals working directly with affected children. The starting point for reform is not defensiveness. It is listening.
When Rolè and Francica spoke out, they were not attacking the courts, social workers, biological parents or foster carers. They were highlighting problems that demand attention in the best interests of children who have little voice in decisions that shape their lives.
When frontline professionals raise concerns about retraumatisation, procedural delay and unintended harm, the response cannot simply be to restate protocol.
If we are unwilling to listen to those working within the system and to the children living with its consequences, we risk compounding the very harm that care orders and supervised access arrangements are meant to prevent.
A system designed to protect children must be judged not by its procedures but by its outcomes. And right now, for too many children, those outcomes remain suspended in uncertainty.