Sharon Keogan demands national study after mother's suicide

You're very welcome in this afternoon Ms Duggan and your team and throughout the years I've had very positive experience fostering and very enjoyable and a lot of those children still in touch with me today. But today I want to talk about something that is rarely talked about and it's a young mother named Grace died last week by suicide after spending more than a year trying to be reunited with her infant son who had been removed into care shortly after Beth's death. After the birth of the child. Her death raises a broader question about the issue that receives very little public attention. International research has found that mothers whose children are taken into care face significantly elevated risks of self-harm and suicide. A Canadian study published in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry found that there were almost three times more likely to attempt suicide and more than four times more likely to die by suicide. Similar concerns were also documented by Professor Karen Broadhurst and colleagues in the UK and Wales. So I'm going to ask a couple of things today and you know what I actually think you might be able to commit to this Ms Duggan. So does TSLA collect the data on the deaths including the deaths by suicide of parents whose children are in care are subject to care proceedings? If not how can TSLA assess the impact of child removal or parent well-being and mortality? Has TSLA ever commissioned, funded or requested an independent research into suicide, self-harm or serious mental health outcomes among parents whose children have been removed into stay care? And in light of Grace's death and I know her mom is actually in hospice care watching this interaction today and in light of her death and the international evidence will TSLA commit here and now, today, to carry out an independent national study into the mental health and mortality outcomes of parents whose children are separated from their children to the care system? And I know we're all talking about the life of the child. To ensure you don't raise any individual or personal. Right and I know we're all talking about the life of the child here today but we also every child there has a parent has a mother and a father and let's never forget them and as a foster parent to me they were the most important individual in that child's life. It doesn't matter what that parent did to that child and how that parent brought that child there's unconditional love between that child and that parent that I as a foster parent would never take away. So I know that there are a number of children taken away at birth and I'm just going to ask you would you commit to having an independent national study into the mental health and mortality outcomes of parents whose children are separated from their children through the care system? Is this something you would commit to today? I think I'm going to be first of all obviously because if there is anybody watching I do absolutely pass on my condolences for the passing of that person and I think it's you know very tragic when any person dies but particularly in the circumstances that you've outlined so that's the first thing to say that is very important and obviously one of the focuses that we've tried to do for the last number of years is to increase our supports to birth parents in terms of the work we do with birth parents the support that we give to birth parents both from a care perspective from a legal perspective from you know all of that and that is something that we are committed to doing. When we're talking about something like the the independent mental health outcomes of children taken into care it's something certainly and what I will commit to do deputy is there senator is to take that away because that would be something that would have to be looked at in the context of our parent department it would have to be looked at in the context of the HSE or the suicide you know prevention because they certainly would have the expertise in that area in terms of when we are referencing mental health outcomes that certainly wouldn't be an expertise that we would have but I certainly can commit to bringing that representation back to our parent department and to look with the HSE in terms of fact that that identified need was there my colleague had just talked about the study that's underway the long-term study in terms of outcomes for children in care and many of those young people do go on to be parents themselves unfortunately many of them their children end up back in the care system so there may be something we can look at within that already and I suppose commissioned a piece of research thank you and reunification have you any figures on reunification in relation to children that are in care that I should get when you reunified with their parents do you have any of those figures there's nothing on your document in relation to do you have that yeah so what we do and I suppose you know capture is in terms of young people that were you know discharged from care or returned home and we know that for example if we took last year and about half of the young people who left the care system turned 18 which meant the other half left the care system because they were either adopted or they were reunified but within that before the age of 18 does Annie do many of the children ever get with the support system because I know as a foster parent I had a social worker yeah and I'm sure that and that parent that would have had the child taken off them would to have a social worker so with the support that you actually give that that parent do many of those children actually go back to that parent after the support that you give them so Jeremy talk to the numbers yeah yeah so maybe just say reunification is really central in everything that we do so we'll often have children in care and voluntary voluntary care if the parent disputes that let's say we might end up in court every time before we go to court to judge the first question I'd ask is have it have this can this child be at home show me the efforts you've made to reunite this child with this mother and you know we have family support and welfare supports we have worked with community organizations to try and support families because again sometimes a parent won't want to work directly with us so we try and reach out and have as many partnerships as we can in order to do that to get under whatever the problems are sometimes that's not possible we do have figures in terms of reunification we don't it's difficult to look at to break down exactly why children are reunified but we do have significant numbers of children and there was any piece of international research done in the last number of years and we're among the English-speaking countries of the world we're among the highest have children reunified back at home put it before the age of 18 before the age of 18 absolutely yeah yeah very much it's central to what we want to do we want to have every child at home if we can it's only if they can't be at home thank you senator for many parents that we engage with it is their struggles with addiction it is their struggles with mental health and again I talk about the fact we want to prioritize children in care how do we prioritize the birth parents of children in getting the supports they need to be able to care for their young people so that is something I think we again would welcome that advocacy around thank you