Update on Ryan report reforms published

THE second progress update on implementing the Ryan report’s recommendations has been published by Children’s Minister Frances Fitzgerald.

Ms Fitzgerald said she was pleased with the efforts to act on the 99 targets in the implementation plan drafted after the Ryan report was published in 2009.

She said the latest assessment shows that:

There will be 260 of the recommended 270 additional social workers hired by the end of 2011.

The process to recruit 29 staff to the Health Service Executive to deliver assessment and therapeutic services to high-risk children is ongoing.

The Government has announced that the Children First Guidelines will be put on a statutory footing.

However, some targets have not been met. And the report shows that there is still no national out-of- hours social work service.

Ms Fitzgerald said trials of such services is ongoing and she expected this to develop throughout the year.

“The report outlines progress on this front including a new emergency- placement foster service for children and the commencement of two out-of- hours social work pilot projects in Donegal and Cork.

“I expect reports on these pilot projects before the end of the year and this learning will inform the future development of out-of-hours social work services nationwide,” she said.

The minister has taken up the chairmanship of the Ryan Report Implementation Group and brought the Children’s Rights Alliance on to it to provide an additional non-governmental perspective.

Alliance chief executive, Senator Jillian van Turnhout said the report was to be “warmly welcomed” as it set priority deadlines and revised targets.

She said it was vital that work to make the Ryan Report Implementation Group more effective continued but it could still only tell part of the story because budgets were not included.

Ms van Turnhout said: “It is imperative that the state ensures that every victim of child abuse will be able to access adequate therapeutic supports and that each child in care has an allocated social worker, a written care plan, additional supports when in crisis, and their care setting independently inspected. These are the fundamental building blocks of the care system.”