Retention of social workers 'biggest challenge' facing Tusla  Cork

The review examined a sample of 200 child protection and welfare cases in the North Lee and South Lee social work departments.

An internal audit of Tusla South's work found that staff recruitment and retention was "the single greatest challenge that the Cork area is contending with", particularly in light of "the significant volume of open child protection and welfare records being processed" in the area.

The audit, received under Freedom of Information, also highlights evidence of good and improved practice in what is the country's largest geographical Tusla area, but also some issues which the review team said needed to be addressed. 

One recommendation was that the Cork area should consider the establishment of a forum for the review of complex cases.

Tusla Cork is the largest of the 17 Tusla administrative areas and Cork has four social work departments — North Lee, South Lee, West Cork, and North Cork.

The 2019 Assurance Review of Child Protection and Welfare Cases in the North and South Lee Social Work Departments Cork Region, by the National Practice Assurance and Service Monitoring Team, published internally last January, was undertaken at the request of the chief operations officer. It examined a sample of 200 child protection and welfare cases in the North Lee and South Lee social work departments.

"The retention of social work workers is the single biggest challenge the area has to contend with," it said. 

"Social workers stated that the agency could do more to support and retain newly qualified practitioners."

It also said: "The area manager has identified the issue of staff recruitment and retention as the single greatest challenge that the Cork Area is contending with. The focus group was of the view that the agency should be doing more to retain social workers. In this regard, a national strategy should be developed and implemented for the purpose of retaining newly qualified social workers."

Towards the end of the year, Tusla said it was now experiencing more stability in terms of its workforce than in any year previously, even allowing for the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on recruitment plans.

The audit also highlighted the workload being dealt with in Tusla Cork, stating: "The area management team are clear that the significant volume of open child protection and welfare records being processed by both departments [in Cork City] at any given point in time is very challenging." 

Elsewhere, the audit found good evidence of the oversight of child protection and welfare cases by local managers, as well as "evidence of well managed and timely responses to the more serious child protection cases, where the child’s need to be protected required urgent action".

Recommendations included that evidence of case supervision should be routinely recorded on Tusla's National Child Care Information System and the auditing of social work supervision and records.