Tusla chief: Some children’s problems we just can’t fix

The head of the State’s child protection agency says there will always be some children with problems Tusla cannot fix.

Tusla chief executive Fred McBride said there would also be times when mistakes will be made.

“There will be times when we make mistakes but making mistakes is not the same thing as failing,” said Mr McBride.

“We don’t set out to fail children but some difficulties that children experience are so intractable, it is very difficult to see how you can make things absolutely right.

“If we can make things slightly better, or at least not make their lives any worse, that may be the best we can do.”

Mr McBride was speaking at Fórsa’s conference on the future for health and social care professionals in a changing health service in Dublin yesterday.

There are 6,300 children in residential care in Ireland, and the biggest single age group are 17-year-olds.

“A significant proportion of children are coming into care as older teenagers, having lived for years in neglectful and abusive situations,” he said.

“Do you think the State is going to be able to sort their problems out in two to three years? Let’s get real. Of course we won’t be able to.

“We will do our best but, inevitably, there will be some children’s problems that we are just not going to be able to fix. That does not mean we are to blame. They are two different things.”

Mr McBride said it also looked as if the number of reports of suspected child abuse last year would exceed 50,000. The agency has yet to realise the full impact of mandatory reporting that came into force last December.

Mr McBride said recruitment and retention of staff continued to be a major challenge. However, there were some signs now that the agency was able to recruit more staff than it was losing.

He said there was now a “full-blown” out-of-hours social work service covering greater Dublin and Cork and seven ‘“on-call” points covering the rest of the country. The number of social workers on call has been doubled so there was someone available if necessary to physically deal with situations as they arose.

However, Mr McBride was not entirely happy that the out-of-hours service was being used efficiently. He would prefer to have a cohort of staff involved in flexible working. It would be voluntary with members providing intensive support to children, young people and families when they are needed.

The aim should be to provide very “high-end” troubled teenagers with the intensive support they needed to keep them out of residential care.

Mr McBride said €5,000 was spent every week on keeping a teenager in residential care but a significant number could remain connected with their homes, schools and communities for about a third of the cost.