The CEO of the Foundation for Social Welfare Services (FSWS) Alfred Grixti warned that the mandatory reporting system is being abused, particularly by couples involved in disputes and seeking separation.

Speaking to The Malta Independent on Sunday, Grixti described a backlog of 896 cases flagged through mandatory reporting that were unassigned to a professional - nearly half of which are suspected to be misused in family disputes.

"We triage these cases, like at a hospital emergency. Urgent ones are allocated immediately. Others, we have to work our way through," Grixti said.

"We need to look at if the law is working and if it is reaching its proper purpose," Grixti said.

Grixti spoke about the foundation's work, as well as the social challenges the country faces. The FSWS has seen a significant increase in government funding in recent years, reportedly sixfold, now nearing €42 million.

Grixti was asked how these funds are being translated into real improvements in social services, especially for vulnerable children and families.

Grixti said the foundation is active not only in Malta but also internationally. "All our sister organisations abroad are struggling with finances. When we tell them we do not know what austerity is, they think we are joking," Grixti said.

Grixti pointed to alternative care as one of the most resource-heavy areas. He said that abroad, placements are often cut short due to underfunding and privatisation, citing England as an example.

He recalled visiting a secure therapeutic unit in England in 2018 with the Minister at the time, where staff showed him a letter from a girl begging to stay on for another year.

"In Malta, placements are not terminated that way because of a lack of funds," Grixti said.

He also spoke of the transformation of the 179 helpline, which used to rely solely on volunteers. "Now, the foundation has a team of 14 full-time responders," Grixti said.

Another major development, he said, was the expansion of services in Gozo, once criticised as lacking support.

"We were told our services stopped at Cirkewwa, but this has changed drastically," Grixti said.

He mentioned the introduction of home-based family therapy, which was also previously unavailable.

"That is an investment in families and keeping them together so that we avoid having to remove their children with care orders," Grixti said.

Since 2012, FSWS staff numbers have risen from 375 to 1,019 by the end of last December, 80% of whom are professional front-liners, Grixti continued.

"Service users have more than doubled, from barely 10,000 in 2010 to 25,000 last year," Grixti said.

"We are making a difference, and I humbly believe our services are of good quality," Grixti said.

Court delays on care orders leave children in permanent uncertainty

The FSWS works with a wide range of service users, from domestic violence survivors to people battling addiction and poverty.

Asked which areas are under most pressure, Grixti immediately identified child protection and looked-after children as services "on the go all the time."

"The other services are not having it easy either, but child protection is recognised as a high-pressure area in our recent collective agreement," Grixti said, which includes an additional €2,000 annual allowance for those roles, describing them as "hot seats."

He also said that domestic violence risk assessors are often unfairly treated by society.

"We have a huge challenge on child protection. The law changed five years ago, and now we have the Minor Protection (Alternative Care) Act, which includes mandatory reporting, a positive development in itself," Grixti said.

However, Grixti warned that the system is being misused, particularly by separating couples filing false reports.

"Mandatory reporting in principle is good. But unfortunately, it is being abused," he said.

Grixti said that the law mandates that within two years, a decision is to be made on whether a child returns to their biological family or enters a permanent alternative placement.

"We have cases where three years later, the care order still has not been issued by the Court. Lawyers exploit loopholes and the process drags on," Grixti said.

"Who ends up suffering? The children. And I worry for them," Grixti said.

While the legal reform removed ministerial discretion from care orders, Grixti said that moving these decisions to the Court created new problems.

"I said it at the time, we will be bogged down. And we are. The court process is too slow, and the children are left in a permanent state of uncertainty," he said.

He denied that ministers ever interfered in care order decisions, and said that in his time in the role, he has worked under two ministers, and both always signed off without interference.

"Now I handle the care order requests, sign off on them, and the minister signs them," Grixti said.

He stressed the need for faster Court proceedings, adding that it is not fair that children are left in limbo.

Grixti clarified that the department receives about 150 child abuse reports a month, which is still high, and reflects the impact of mandatory reporting.

He had said before that the Child Protection Services had only 55 staff, including managers, and estimated that the department would need 96 people to handle caseloads efficiently, being 46 short.

"Last week, we finally got approval to employ 20 graduates. Capacity building has been approved," Grixti said.

FSWS proposes 'family-support mentors' to help with parenting skills

Grixti said the foundation has put forward two key proposals in its Budget requests.

One is to recruit at least 30 family support mentors, mature individuals with life experience to work hands-on with struggling families, Grixti said.

"These mentors can help families learn basic parenting, homemaking, financial skills. We are not reinventing the wheel, this is being done abroad," he said.

"There's an urgent need. In most backlog cases, it's not that parents are evil. They are simply lacking skills or parenting capacity," Grixti said.

He shared the case of a mother of five who was struggling financially, but still bought an expensive mobile phone for one of her children as a birthday gift, at the cost of not having enough money to feed her children.

"She meant well, but her priorities were not there. That is not a case for a care order. It is a case for support, and guidance of priorities," Grixti said.

Grixti added that every time the FSWS opens even a small community unit, demand surges.

"The meeting place in Marsa, for example, was not meant for services, it was just a space for NGOs. However, the vulnerable people in the Marsa community came to us for help, and we responded," Grixti said.

He acknowledged that the economy is doing well, but many are still struggling, often not through their own fault, sometimes it would just be about bad decisions.

Grixti was asked how the FSWS measures the effectiveness of their interventions long-term.

On how the FSWS evaluates its work, Grixti pointed to service goals and user progress.

He used domestic violence support as an example. "We help victims from all walks of life, whether they did not finish school or hold a degree. The aim is to help them plan for safety, get into shelters if needed, and rebuild their lives," Grixti said.

"They start from zero, but they eventually gain the skills they need, jobs, housing, independence. That is how we measure effectiveness," Grixti said.

For addiction cases, he said the focus is on prevention.

"A recent European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD) report showed that prevention works, substance use among boys is dropping. However, what is worrying is that among girls, it is rising. We need to understand why and investigate this," Grixti said.

He said that the FSWS delivers half its prevention programmes in schools and the other half in workplaces.

"There is no pandemic of people showing up to work under the influence of drugs, so the prevention services are working," Grixti said.

He said rehabilitation has a 50% success rate for first-time users.

"We do not give up on them. We help them time and time again until they stand on their feet and find a job," Grixti said.

He also spoke of work being done with young offenders at Mtahleb's Centre of Residential Restorative Services (CoRRS).

"We do not abandon them. We work with the Correctional Services Agency to provide support. One minor gave us a testimonial on camera. He was a foreigner who got into petty crime, but now he has wised up and found a job," Grixti said.

Asked about poverty, homelessness and long-term solutions, Grixti said that the FSWS approaches each case individually.

"Many times, addiction leads to poverty and arrest. However, we cannot force people to get help, they need to have the willpower," Grixti said.

He said that around 3% to 5% of the population is severely materially deprived, correlating with the FSWS' 25,000 service users.

He said that the FSWS is the distributer of the EU-funded FEAD (Fund of the European Aid to the Most Deprived), a scheme which provides food packages to those in need.

"What goes unnoticed and unreported is that those are the accompanying measures. We have profiled those people; we have reached out to them and engaged with them. The food box is a means to an end, there are various aspects to it," Grixti said.

If these people are pensioners, the foundation reaches out to them to offer services such as exchanging their old appliances for more energy efficient ones, saving on their energy bill down the line, Grixti said.

The foundation is also engaged with the Water and Energy Agency to help families to working age, he said, adding that this is help in practice.

"We worked on the Gemma project which is about prioritising how one spends money and finances, to save up on a rainy day," Grixti said.