The Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) has today published an inspection report on the foster care service operated by the Child and Family Agency (Tusla) in the Midlands service area.

HIQA is authorised by the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs under Section 69 of the Child Care Act, 1991, as amended by Section 26 of the Child Care (Amendment) Act 2011, to inspect foster care services provided by or on behalf of Tusla, including non-statutory providers of foster care. HIQA monitors foster care services against the National Standard for Foster Care, 2003, and reports on its findings to the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs.

As part of its 2017 and 2018 monitoring programme, HIQA is conducting thematic inspections across 17 Tusla service areas which focus on the recruitment, assessment, approval, supervision and review of foster carers. These thematic inspections are announced and cover eight standards relating to the theme.   

The report published today refers to a four-day inspection of the Midlands foster care service that took place in September and October 2017. The previous inspection of the service area in May 2016 identified significant risks in the areas of care planning and review, and matching. These two standards were also inspected against. Out of 10 standards assessed; three standards were compliant; two standards were substantially compliant; and five standards were found to be non-compliant, of which three were identified as moderate non-compliances; and two as major non-compliances in areas such as safeguarding and recruitment.  

Since the previous inspection, the area had made significant improvements with regard to child in care reviews and care planning, reviews of foster carers and the foster care committee. Improvements were also evident in regard to support and training provided to foster carers. Although, there was a training strategy in place there was no system to ensure that all foster carers attended training they required.

Good quality assessments were carried out on all foster carers prior to approval, however there were delays in assessing some relative foster carers. Inspectors also found that there continued to be insufficient placement options in the area. This posed difficulties in ensuring that there were suitable placements for children in need of foster care.

There was good practice in ensuring foster carers were reviewed in line with Standards. The area had a dedicated reviewing officer, who organised and chaired review, and ensured that the quality of review reports was good.

The area responded quickly and appropriately to allegations against foster carers, but the oversight of safety planning in relation to actual or potential risk required improvement.

While there were a number of safeguarding measures in place, not all relative carers or members of foster care households who were over 16 years were Garda Síochána (police) vetted. Furthermore, not all carers were trained in safeguarding, and a large percentage of foster carers had not completed training in Children First.

The Midlands service area has provided an action plan response to address the non-compliances identified on inspection.