Children were sent to foster carers who were not assessed or approved

Children were sent to foster carers who were not yet either assessed or approved, while five foster families were still caring for children despite have their application to the service rejected.

These are among the findings of an inspection report into fostering services in Cork published by the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) yesterday.

Overall, it said the fostering service of Ireland was generally of a high standard, with children well cared for and receiving a good level of support from professionally qualified social workers.

However, it found six foster carers that had not yet been assessed or approved, yet were caring children, while five foster care households were caring for children despite having had their application to foster care rejected by the Foster Care Committee.

There were other shortcomings, such as the needs of children with a disability not consistently being met, and an “inequitable” aftercare service, with many children not receiving a dedicated aftercare service. It showed 46 of the 150 referrals for under 18s and 104 of 170 over 18s had been alloc-ated an aftercare service.

Children were not always living with foster carers from their own cultural, ethnic, and religious background. It also found the uptake of training by foster carers was poor.

Also, 31 concerns were logged with the Fostering Resource Unit in the year prior to the inspection. Three of the foster carers chose to retire and their names had to be removed from the panel of approved foster carers, while a special foster carer review recommended the removal of one foster carer.

The Hiqa inspection found many improvements compared with the findings of a previous inspection in 2009. At the time of the inspection, there were 881 children living in foster care in the Cork area being cared for by 358 foster carers and 207 relative carers.

About 90% of children had an allocated social worker and 67% of foster carers had an allocated link social worker. There were 14 households caring for more than two children that were not siblings. Ten children were placed in non-statutory foster care placements and there were 43 children awaiting foster care placements.

* Full report at www.hiqa.ie