More rights for children in care

This emerged from an NFCAM survey which was carried out amongst 90% of Malta’s foster families, published yesterday.

Currently 83.8% of the families are fostering one child, 13.4% are fostering two children and 2.8% are fostering three children.

The survey pointed out the need for better legislation promoting more rights for the fostered children and the foster carers.

Jason Zerafa, NFCAM President, explained: “What the carers are requesting is surely not selfish but rather, would be to the benefit of the children in their care, and others who are still waiting to be placed in a foster family. The fact that some biological parents who are incapable of raising their own kids can still decide to put their children in residential care instead of fostering is depriving these kids of a better future.

He added: “We also believe that if a situation exists where the natural family shows no interest whatsoever in her own child for a stipulated period of time, the foster care placement is changed into a permanent one, where more stability is guaranteed for the child himself.”

The survey also puts light on problems fostered children have at school.

“One must understand that when a child is placed in a foster family, the child will experience a drastic change in environment, which will effect the same child emotionally. Past traumas take some time to heal and this will lead to some challenging behaviour. Lack of awareness from school teachers in certain cases makes the child’s life more difficult at school, and may create unnecessary hurdles to overcome. This lack of awareness sometimes leads to the child being labelled and in certain cases also bullied,” Zerafa said.

Another thing pinpointed out in the survey was the need to improve the current economic benefits in various ways.

Asked in what ways the carers are asking for the benefits to be improved, Zerafa replied: “Taking care of a new addition in your family, obviously brings more responsibility and an increase in financial expenses. There are cases where a member of the family has to stop from work for a certain period of time to dedicate more time for the new child. This will bring a bigger financial burden, which sometimes may lead to foster carers finding a part-time job to cope with the new expenses.

“There already exists the child in care benefit, which we might also consider to increase. Foster carers might also be given subsidy on utility bills, as is already being done with residential homes.

He also mentioned that “more professionals such as psychologists and play-therapists should be available free of charge, since the lack of these are leading to some foster carers spending most of the child in care benefit, in order to help the children in their care to deal with different traumas, by taking these children to see such professionals on their own initiative.”On a positive note, 60.3% of the carers received effective support from the Fostering Team of Appogg all the time, while the remaining percentage rated the service differently.

The foster families also asked for more training in specialised topics, including how to deal with the child’s behavioural issues.

The Association intends to prepare a document based on the survey’s feedback, which will indicate the way forward for foster care in Malta.