Continuing shortcomings found in country's busiest foster care areas

An inspection into one of the country's busiest foster care areas has found continuing shortcomings in some aspects of the service there.

The statutory foster care service inspection report of the Dublin South West, Kildare, West Wicklow area follows a review last September into its delivery of safe and effective services.

It was the third inspection of the foster care service area by the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) since February 2018. The earlier checks identified some major non-compliances and serious risks.

This latest inspection found evidence of progress and good practice but also found that of the six national standards assessed, four were moderately non-compliant.

Of 70 children surveyed, most said they saw enough of their family and friends, and they were generally positive about their foster families and their social workers, although 12 children who responded to questionnaires said that they did not have a social worker.

"At the end of the inspection, there were a small number of children who had not been visited by a social worker within the previous six months," HIQA said, adding there was "insufficient evidence of adequate oversight of unallocated cases".

It also said some children were living in other areas of the country for sufficiently long periods to have their care transferred there, but this had not happened in a timely way. HIQA also criticised the quality of record-keeping and said there were 34 children whose child in care reviews were overdue at the time of inspection. There were also 34 care plans which were not up to date.

The inspection report said social workers worked to protect children from abuse and there was good oversight of complaints and allegations, but "the tracking of child protection and welfare concerns against people other than the children’s foster carers required improvement".

It said there were gaps in the aftercare service and there were continuing significant delays in the assessment of relative carers, as well as shortcomings in terms of foster carer reviews.

"One principal social worker estimated that, with these resources in place, the area would take a further 13 months to get all foster carer reviews up to date," it said.

While Tusla’s National Child Care Information system (NCCIS) for recording children’s information was implemented in the area in July 2018, the NCCIS user liaison officer post was vacant for the first six months and not filled until January 2019 - "As a result, the NCCIS system was not as well embedded in the area as in other Tusla areas," it said.

"This area is now subject to a service improvement plan, which has been put in place by Tusla National Office," HIQA said.

www.hiqa.ie