Children’s services publication statement 20 September 2017

Date of publication:

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

HIQA monitors services used by some of the most vulnerable children in the State and 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 Standards for Foster Care, 2003, and reports on its findings to the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs.

As part of its 2017 monitoring programme, HIQA is conducting thematic inspections across all 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 this theme.

The report published today refers to an announced inspection in June 2017 of this foster care service. Of the eight standards assessed, two were fully compliant, five were substantially compliant and one standard was moderately non-compliant.

Children’s safety was prioritised in the area and allegations and complaints were responded to appropriately. There was good managerial oversight of allegations and complaints; however, not all allegations were correctly classified and no clear decision-making process was in place. The area had a system in place for obtaining An Garda Síochána (police) vetting; however, inspectors found that 11 foster carers did not have up-to-date Garda Síochána (police) vetting.

Assessments of prospective foster carers were comprehensive, detailed and of good quality, as were reviews of foster carers.

There was formal supervision of foster carers as set out in the national policy on the role of the link (social) worker and most foster carers received good support from their link worker. However, 21 of the 97 foster carers in the area did not have an allocated link worker at the time of inspection and ten of these foster carers had not been visited by a link worker in the previous six months. In addition, there was no dedicated out-of-hours service to support foster carers which meant that foster carers had to rely on calling An Garda Síochána if an incident occurred outside of office hours.

The foster care committee was effective, but was not fully compliant with the standards and national policy, procedures and best practice. Three committee members did not have up-to-date Garda vetting.

Some improvements were also required with regard to the training provided to foster carers on Children First: Guidance for the Protection and Welfare of Children, and the oversight of foster carers’ attendance at training. However, the area had completed a training needs analysis and provided a comprehensive, rolling training programme for foster carers.

A recruitment strategy was in place and a recruitment campaign was held each year. While there was a sufficient number of foster carers in the area, there was an insufficient range of foster carers to meet the needs of children coming into care. Furthermore, no formal strategy for the retention of foster carers was in place.

The service has prepared an action plan to address the non-compliances identified on inspection.