Wednesday's Child by Shane Dunphy Page B

me to come up and had welcomed me in. She was now sitting behind her desk reading the report on my one and only visit to the Kellys.
     
    It was a lengthy paper because I was convinced that an investigation into the circumstances of the events would follow. I wanted to make sure that Ihad every point covered. After all, this was a visit that had involved a social worker, a community childcare worker, the gardaí, the psychiatric services and the ambulance corps. A woman had drawn a knife and had ended up cut, albeit shallowly, and had subsequently been temporarily committed (apparently she was due to be released back into society the following week). The social worker who was supposed to be co-ordinating things had had to be escorted home because he was obviously unfit to be on active duty. That left me the Senior Worker, and certainly the only competent worker, in situ. I was not taking any chances.
     
    I sat and waited, looking around the office. It was decorated in a minimalist, almost spartan, manner. In Health Board offices, many features were the same. The carpet was a kind of dark beige carpet tile, the paint on the wall was the ubiquitous magnolia. The desk was standard also. On it sat a small clock that looked to be of Waterford Crystal, a laptop computer and a plastic cube that contained photos I assumed were of Josephine’s family. On the wall was a simple print of a generic cityscape in a plain black wooden frame. Beside it was a large calendar advertising one of the local banks. It was almost as if she didn’t believe that she’d be there for long, and had made no effort to make the space her own. Everyone else had tried to customise their desks and workspaces, so Josephine’s lack of commitment stood out. I thought it was interesting, and decided to keep aneye on this lady. There was much more to her than met the eye.
     
    She finally finished the document and looked up. Her eyes were a dark blue colour, giving her a deep, thoughtful appearance.
     
    ‘Very thorough. You really did have quite a time of it, didn’t you?’
     
    ‘It was fun.’
     
    She laughed in a brief snort.
     
    ‘Fun is one thing I’m sure it wasn’t. The Kellys are a … complicated bunch.’
     
    ‘I gathered.’
     
    ‘They have been on the books for a very long time, and there has been a series of workers involved to one degree or another, coming and going as the case moves through different stages and the focus changes from one family member to another. That’s the way of it with long-term cases. You know that.’
     
    I nodded. Continuity of care was always the aspiration, but often there was a rapid turnover of workers with families like the Kellys. When it became obvious that a family would be on the books for the long haul, the practice was usually to channel workers through a series of short projects. Staff would be circulated, moved on to other cases and other children, since these virtually permanent clients were seen as lost causes, simply being maintained – resolution of their problems was too much to hope for. Also, prolonged exposure could result in burnout, as had happened to Sinéad with the O’Gormans.
     
    ‘This office is only concerned with the children in the family – other agencies deal with the adults. There are three minors in the Kelly home at present: Denise, who is seventeen, the baby, Christine, and Connie, who is fifteen. That leaves the parents and an older brother, Mike, who’s in his late twenties and who has severe psychiatric disturbance. We, of course, have regular encounters with the other family members because of the nature of the work, but our focus is on the three minors.’
     
    ‘I understand.’
     
    ‘Denise has been the subject of several interventions, and we have managed to get her registered with a local youth project. Joe is in regular contact with the staff there, and Denise has a lot of support, so far as we can see. She has not exactly engaged with any of the