Background to the Research

• All children have developmental needs that must be met if they are to reach their potential as self-confident, socially responsible adults. In recent years much work has been undertaken to identify these developmental needs, adopting a holistic approach that considers all aspects of a child's life. It is now widely accepted that children's developmental needs can be described by the following seven dimensions:
  • Health;
  • Education;
  • Identity;
  • Family and social relationships;
  • Social presentation;
  • Emotional and behavioural development;
  • Self-care.
• This report focuses specifically on one aspect of development: that of identity. For children, an important component of identity is understanding about one's self and one's history, about knowing who they are and where they have come from. In terms of developmental needs this means that the child is given the necessary encouragement to develop a positive self-image and strong sense of their own identity and has the opportunity to learn about their family, their background and their culture.

Research Approach

• The research study had three aims:
  • To identify the prevalence across Northern Ireland of children from cross-community relationships within the looked after population;
  • To examine the difficulties faced by Trusts in gathering information about the community background of families;
  • To explore with Trust staff what, from their experiences, they see as the key issues that may contribute to children from cross-community families becoming looked after and the way in which their particular needs are being addressed.
• These three aims have been achieved by two methods:
  • A quantitative survey of the characteristics of a one in five representative sample of all children looked after on 1 October 1998;
  • A series of interviews with senior and middle managers in the Trusts.
    

Main Findings

• There are three main findings from the study
  • Children from cross-community families are over-represented within the looked after population
  • Trust staff had not identified this group of children as significant or as having particular needs
  • Field work staff had an over-optimistic view of the quality of their recording; while information on the religious affiliation of children looked after was very good, that relating to the community background of parents and family members was very poor.

Conclusions

• The primary aim of this study was to establish the prevalence of this group of children within the public care system. Now that the research findings point to a substantial over-representation of children from cross-community families, it is important to ascertain what factors are likely to contribute to this and how the particular issues which face children and their families are being addressed by social service provisions.