Dublin District Court granted a care order until the age of 18 for a girl who suffered from anorexia nervosa and who had been in interim care for a number of months. Her father was abroad and her mother not contactable.
The solicitor for the Child and Family Agency (CFA) told the court that their application for a care order concerned the teenage girl who had been taken into care the previous August. The child’s father was abroad and not in attendance. He had instructed a solicitor to attend court and she said he was not supporting the CFA application, but did not give detailed instructions to oppose the application. The child’s mother had not been found by the agency despite the efforts to serve a summons on her.
The CFA relied on the evidence of two social workers who had worked with the child in recent months. The first social worker, who had been initially assigned to the child, explained that the CFA was concerned about the child’s health and this was reinforced by her diagnosis with anorexia. She said that despite the child’s family’s efforts to support her the girl’s condition had been worsening and she had spent several months in hospital.
She said the CFA worked with the family to provide them with support, including acting as a liaison between the family and the CAMHS service and the dietician who were treating the child. There were concerns that the family were not engaging with the supports offered to them and the CFA believed the girl experienced medical neglect. The child was later readmitted to hospital and her condition was worse than it had ever been. This led the CFA to initiate an application for an interim care order (ICO).
The social worker said the child’s family, including her father, demonstrated an understanding that the child needed medical care, but they did not have an adequate engagement or motivation to support the child and ensure she accessed the medical care she needed and followed the directions of the clinicians.
The social worker said that the child had settled well in her care placement. The child was supported in attending extensive medical, psychological and dental appointments. She engaged well with these services despite her initial reluctance and anxiety to attend the dentist.
The second social worker who was currently assigned to the child said she believed that a care order was necessary to provide the child with stability and support. She agreed with the CFA solicitor that the order should last until the child reached adulthood. She said she did not see an improvement in the girl’s family’s understanding of the child’s illness and they did not grasp its severity.
She said that the child was well settled in her placement and she had made lots of friends. She looked happy and was doing well in care. She said the child’s illness was being well managed by the care team and she was receiving weekly appointments with CAMHS along with personal support and supervision. She said the child has not been hospitalised since she entered care.
The guardian ad litem (GAL) said that she had met the child several times since she had been appointed. She had also met some of the medical and social work staff caring for the child. She said that the child was highly intelligent but struggled with emotional regulation. She said that there was a pattern of the child giving different answers to different professionals which made it more difficult to support her.
The GAL said that the child’s parents were very absent and they did not engage with the supports being offered. She said that the child had reservations about the full care order as she preferred the temporary nature of the successive ICOs and she hoped to return to her family. However, the GAL said she did not believe this was plausible given the parent’s lack of engagement and told the court she supported the CFA’s application for a full care order.
The judge said that it was “very apparent from the reports that structure and routine are necessary for the child’s recovery and her parents are not able to provide that.” She described the child’s illness as a “perilous condition”. She said to her knowledge neither parent was in the country and the child had a sister who was in the care system in another European county.
She said she would grant the full care order until the child’s 18th birthday because it was necessary to ensure the child’s health and to safeguard her interests. The judge acknowledged that the child had adult siblings in the State said the social work team should support the child in continuing her relationship with her family.