Growing number of children with complex needs coming into the care system
Tusla, the Child and Family Agency, is coping with an increasing number of children with complex needs entering the care system. Stock picture
Tusla is to place more emphasis on supporting relative foster carers amid a rise in cases of children with more complex needs coming into the care system.
Bernard Gloster, Tusla CEO, said there has been a rise in foster placements where young people are placed further from home, often due to the availability of suitable carers.
Mr Gloster said there is a rise in young people that Tusla finds it harder to respond to in terms of stabilised placements.
"I don't think that's just because of Covid, I think that's because of drugs and crime and lots of other things that feature in the lives of different communities," he said.
"It makes it more difficult to find placements for those young people who are really challenged by their environment and what is around them."
Tusla has launched a number of initiatives to recruit new foster carers this year, but the high number of children in care continues to pose a challenge.
The Tusla report for March, the most recent available, showed 65% of children in care are in general foster care, while 26% are in relative foster care. Mr Gloster said there was scope to expand the latter category.
On long-distance foster placements, he said he has recently asked the 17 Tusla area managers to see whether the agency could place a number of emergency foster families on a retained basis for emergency placements, "and that our out-of-hours provision doesn't create that geographic distance that has crept in in recent years".
Mr Gloster said families — including foster families — had come under increased pressure due to the pandemic, but that Tusla was working to improve services in a number of areas, including step-down facilities for children in special care, additional funding for NGOs, and governance changes with six regions instead of four, all under regional managers.
