The Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) has today published an inspection report on the Child and Family Agency (Tusla’s) foster care services in the Louth Meath service area. 

HIQA is authorised by the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth 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 Tusla and to report on its findings to the Minister, and to inspect services taking care of a child on behalf of Tusla, including non-statutory providers of foster care. HIQA monitors foster care services against the 2003 National Standards for Foster Care.

HIQA conducted a thematic inspection of the foster care service in Louth Meath in January 2022. These thematic inspections are primarily focused on assessing the efficacy of governance arrangements across foster care services and the impact these arrangements have for children in receipt of foster care. This thematic programme is the third and final phase of a three-phased schedule of inspection programmes monitoring foster care services.

Of the eight standards assessed, three were moderate non-compliant and five were substantially compliant.  

The management structures in Louth Meath were well established, but their effectiveness varied due to persistent risks which compromised the quality and safety of the service being provided. At the time of the inspection, there were 27 foster carers (9%) without an allocated link social worker and fostering assessments were delayed. In addition, there were 82 children in foster care (21%) without an allocated social worker. There was a duty system for the management of unallocated cases, but this did not ensure consistent and responsive support, intervention and supervision of children and foster carers in line with national standards. In the previous 12 months, the service area had implemented contingency plans for dealing with such capacity challenges, but these measures had not been effective in systematically reducing these delays and gaps in service provision.

The identification and classification of risk was comprehensive, but the service did not have the capacity to implement all existing controls to mitigate against certain risks and some risks to the service persisted. Risks in relation to staffing capacity, unallocated cases, and lack of placements to meet the needs of children in the area were regularly risk escalated, but the risk management response from a regional and national level had not been effective. 

Following this inspection, HIQA requested the area to complete a provider assurance report in relation to identified gaps in the management and monitoring of the foster care service. The area provided HIQA with satisfactory assurances in relation to how the service would address these issues.

This inspection report can be found at the link below