Clinical psychologist and former child protection officer Roberta Attard said that there is a huge lack of therapeutic facilities and permanent residences for victims of child abuse in Malta, highlighting a situation of “utter panic” within the services, as there is nowhere to place children who should not remain in their normal environment.

Earlier this month, a University of Malta research study shed light on the problem of child abuse in Malta, highlighting ‘very high’ percentages of child abuse cases, and a ‘very small’ percentage of individuals who do seek help, with many deciding to seek help decades later.

The Malta Independent on Sunday spoke with psychologist Roberta Attard, one of the main researchers of the project, to further expand on the study, the first of its kind, showing this reality in Malta.

She explained that through the study, it appeared to researchers that from the narratives of persons from a grassroots level, and the narrative of clients, persons who now have quite severe mental health issues have spoken to them about a childhood in which, inevitably, there was some form of child abuse, in most occasions by a member of the family or someone close to it.

The research was done, supported by funds in a private-partnership scheme, to try to understand the prevalence of child abuse within the Maltese islands, and the impact that childhood abuse has had, both retrospectively, as one tries to remember what it was like as a child experiencing those circumstances, but also how the abuse continues to impact the person in their everyday life.

Attard said that they were quite impressed with the response, as this is a particularly notorious area to research, with difficulty in finding participants.

Using a mixed method design, the researchers interviewed professionals who work with persons who had experienced traumatic events due to abuse and persons who were perpetrators who had actually perpetuated the abuse on children.

The study also consisted of interviews with other people who were involved in some form of safeguarding, as well as a focus group of children who were commenting in the process, which researchers found extremely important, where the focus was on online use and the challenges of online use.

The study also included an anonymous questionnaire which had a good response rate into both the incidents and the various effects of physical, emotional, sexual abuse and neglect.

Attard was asked about underreporting of child abuse cases, and what discourages children to not report their abuse.

She said that from what people wrote in the further comments section of the questionnaire and from information gathered from professionals who work with persons who have been through abuse, very often there is victim blaming.

Children are loyal

“There would be a lot of shame around talking about all forms of abuse, so people put up a façade, they pretend that things are okay and tend to hide what is happening, especially if it is happening within the household. Children also do this because they are naturally very loyal, so most them are very protective of their families, even the perpetrators of their abuse,” Attard said.

She said that when she worked as a child protection officer, she remembered children who told her that even though they've been hurt or wounded, they didn't want bad things to happen to the person who had perpetuated it. “They just wanted it to stop. Unfortunately, that's not what happens,” Attard said.

“The word spreads in society as well, so children now have the understanding that if they had to report abuse or even talk to someone about it, an investigation is going to happen. They feel that the control over the situation is taken from them,” she continued.

Attard said that most of the children who officers talk to after they have reported abuse said that if they had known what was going to happen to them and to the perpetrator, they actually would not have filed the report.

“That, for me, is heartbreaking," Attard said, adding that sometimes, nothing happens, not because of lack of trying or effort, but there are very few social workers, even in terms of their training.

 

Few applications for social work courses

She highlighted that the social work course which leads to professional social work attracts very few applicants.

"Social work in Malta is not an attractive profession at the moment," Attard (above) said. The work they do is highly stressful and it is "a job you only take if you do it with utter dedication to the client population that you serve," otherwise describing it as a "thank-less job."

There are also very long waiting lists, making it difficult for someone to get help. Attard said that while the initial response does not take long, the follow-up is the issue.

"Sometimes, when you intervene a little bit, or momentarily, the system that the child is in reorganizes in a way that is no longer possible for the child to be able to talk about what's happening. In a way, a little intervention might be more dangerous to a child than a full intervention," Attard said.

Attard said that the services available for children who are no longer able to live with their family of origin are extremely difficult to come by in Malta, mentioning fostering and specialised fostering. She said that she hoped a research would be carried out to find out why fostering services in Malta, despite the efforts of the service itself, have not expanded.

She said that there are "so few people" who go through the course and are interested in becoming foster parents in this country. "It would be really important from a research perspective to try and understand why, and what is the impeding people from wanting to foster children," Attard said.

The services available for these children are also "very few, and far between," Attard said, where usually, the next of kin ends up taking care of the child, adding that this may not be ideal in certain situations.

Services of all types are lacking, which include psychological therapy, persons specialised in working with children who have been through traumatic incidents, as well as services, including residential, for perpetrators of child abuse.

"It is really difficult to create a system of preventative services. We want preventative services. This should not be a punitive society which punishes people because of things that happened. That has its own place. In the area of child abuse, there needs to be a lot of reparative work, and also preventative work," Attard said.

Concretely, the first thing to be done is to make social work more attractive, to persons within society who may want to provide assistance, but are discouraged by the difficult conditions social workers are under, the pay, the huge responsibility one needs to take as a social worker, and the new timelines for persons to report. These need to be addressed, Attard said.

The weakest members

She mentioned the parenting groups that the Foundation for Social Welfare Services (FSWS) organises which are very useful and based on sound principles. Unfortunately, Attard said that the people who attend are the least people who need it.

Specific residential programmes for perpetrators of abuse are hard to find, and "definitely, Corradino Correctional Facility (CCF) is not the place to rehabilitate these people," adding that very often, these people come out of prison feeling angrier.

She said that the structure and strength of a society is based on its treatment of its weakest member. In a society like Malta which through research, we can see how the weakest members, being children - especially those with mental health issues, who are only weak by virtue that society weakens them - are being exposed to more possibilities of abuse.

Attard was asked if she sees a difference between teenagers in the past, and teenagers now, and their behaviours, especially when they are now very exposed to social media.

Attard linked this to a conversation she has with her children. "I always tell my children that in the past, we also made plenty of mistakes. But it's gone, it's in the past now, and we do not re-live it on a daily basis because somebody brought up a past event on social media," Attard said.

She said that the dangers happening with social media, including bystanders which do not attempt to stop the fighting, but rather encourage and film it, do not allow the right for an event to be forgotten.

"You have a right, both for you to forgive yourself for any misdeeds, and to be forgiven, but also that society does not continue to bring it up for you," Attard said, adding that the recent broadcasted student fight videos, will haunt the people involved.

She said under-aged individuals tend to feel safe sharing nude photos of themselves to their partners, thinking they would remain with that partner forever.

"We know that the pre-frontal cortex and the brain in general, the part it has left to develop and mature is the part of the brain that deals with logic, decision making," Attard said, adding that once these photos or videos are on the world wide web, it is almost impossible to remove them.

Attard said that society has individuals who live in constant fear of being found out for something which was not a crime, and that one day, when they are working in an accomplished job, this would come back to haunt them, adding that in some cases, the reputation would follow them.

She said that something which was observed is that the level of violence amongst the younger generation (12-20) seems to have risen exponentially in the past number of years, adding that in her years as a child protection social worker, she had seen one-off incidents of this nature.

"Nowadays, it really seems that the level of violence and frustration, and gangs especially, have come back," Attard said, adding that this merits a research study to understand how the level of violence has increased, and that policies cannot continue to be made on anecdotes and opinion.

She said that we have to base policies, especially for them to be effective, on research, adding that we need to focus on truly understanding where to direct resources.

"Unfortunately, a lot of the research we do is descriptive, meaning that we already know what is happening in society. What we need to know is what needs to be done to address this," Attard said, adding that Malta should look at other countries' research on this and find what could be useful.

Attard said that a most common group of abusers are one's own siblings, adding to a heightened feeling of lack of safety in one's home.

"This is something which came up a lot in the study, the eternal lack of safety respondents felt, especially when the abusive situation has not been addressed properly," Attard said.

 

16-year-old mayors

Attard was asked about government now allowing 16, 17-year-olds to be able to hold the position of mayor of a locality.

Attard said she has absolute respect for the logical and decision-making capacity of some youths, so it is not a question of age, but rather a question of education, maturity, and putting all 16-year-olds in the same box is not the ideal.

"Having said that, from developmental psychology, we know that human beings develop within normative ways. This is why there is a moratorium in adolescence, because as adults and researchers we have an expectation that the adolescent brain is not fully formed yet," Attard said, in terms of neuro-psychology, as well as through testing on the brain.

She continued that she cannot speak about a particular 16-year-old, as their brain might be perfectly capable of holding a role in the office.

"However, in general, because decision making skills, logical argumentation and understanding things in a logical way, as well as impulse control, are all affected by this part of the brain, the logical conclusion would be, understandably, to think that it might make more sense that in terms of norms, the person's brain should have more time to mature a bit further, before they can hold the responsibility not only of their own lives, but the responsibility of a whole group of society," Attard said.

She said that education must also prepare the individual for that role, mentioning public speaking, a recent phenomenon which is only available in some schools.

Attard mentioned social emotional learning in school, but questioned what happens in these courses to truly prepare a person to take on this huge responsibility.

She said that there is also an emotive centre side of the brain, which she said that even in this respect, because of the yet-immature aspect of the emotional centre of the brain, one would hope that some more time would pass before a person is given such a huge responsibility to make decisions for other persons.

Attard said the research has shown that often times, a decision thought to be made logically by youths almost always tends to be a decision made by the emotional side of the brain, where they cannot separate the two, as the awareness of how their emotions would be impacting their decisions is crucial, which one gets with life experience.

Audit of existing services

Attard said that there needs to be a very clear audit of the existing services in society, wherever there is doubling of services, where the resources are going, how they are being used and if they are being used effectively.

She said that young children who are no longer able to remain in their family or foster/adoptive family because of the effects of their experiences of child abuse on their behaviour, cognition and emotion, do not have a secure therapeutic facility to reside in over a period of time.

We have what used to be called the Young People's Unit. The children who go there say is not conducive of improving mental health" Attard said, adding that it is like a holding facility, when we need a therapeutic secure facility.

All these very basic crucial services are not even there, Attard said, to keep young children and adolescents safe, from for example self-harming and attempted suicide, until their mental health issues are sufficiently addressed.

"Parents who can afford it send their children to therapeutic services abroad, but most people cannot afford this, and that is not social justice for the most vulnerable members of society who are going to be the parents and workers of tomorrow," Attard said, adding that there is not even a half-way house for young people who need a therapeutic environment to be in until their family situation is sufficiently resolved.

She said that until the country solves this very basic lacuna in society, pull the fragmentation back together again, and provide a permanent residential therapeutic facility for people who are either at risk of abusing children, or who have abused them, then society will not move forward.

"The research has shown that these facilities are also highly needed. Take the perpetrator out of the home, instead of the child, and help the perpetrator, as it is useless addressing it with a punitive point of view, especially when they show remorse," Attard said, adding that these people need help in changing their patterns and behaviours that they wouldn't be able to do alone, as well as preventing the risk of re-offending.

A second part of the interview will be carried tomorrow