The Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) is celebrating the seventh International Care Day, the world’s largest celebration of the rights of children and young people with experience of care. This includes children and young people who were or are being cared for by family members with the support of social workers; foster carers; or children and young people from children’s homes and residential units.

Eva Boyle, HIQA’s Head of Children’s Services, said: “Care day is a chance to celebrate the care experiences of children and young people, through both their stories and their achievements. The theme of this year’s Care Day is, ‘It takes a village to raise a family’. We are supporting Care Day to celebrate how different people across communities can have a positive influence on children and young people and how important these relationships are in shaping the lives of children in care. We believe that every child deserves to have a childhood where they can reach their full potential.” 

In Ireland, there are nearly 6,000 children currently living with foster families or in residential homes and about 500 children who leave care each year. HIQA works to support children in care by inspecting statutory children’s residential centres, foster care services, child protection and welfare services, special care and Oberstown Children Detention Campus. 

Eva Boyle continued: “In HIQA, we inspect children’s services to ensure that they are doing everything they can to support children and young people and that their voices are being listened to. Our goal is to help services to improve so that every child who needs support receives it in a way that meets their needs.”

Care Day is organised by Empowering People in Care (EPIC) an advocacy organisation for children and young people who are currently in care or who have experience of being in care. To find out more about Care Day visit the website www.careday.org/. 

We have also created a video to highlight the work we do to support children in care. You can view the video above to find out more about our work.

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Further information: 
Marty Whelan, Head of Communications & Stakeholder Engagement
085 805 5202, mwhelan@hiqa.ie 

Notes to Editor:
•    HIQA is currently developing two new sets of national standards to support the delivery of high-quality child-centred services in Ireland. National standards describe what children and families using services should expect when they experience a particular social care service, and what a service should have in place to ensure children are safe and their needs are met.