Accommodation fears for older teens entering care system for first time  

Tusla CEO Kate Duggan warned that the child and family agency is seeing a 'significant increase' in the number of 16- to 18-year-olds entering care who had never previously been in the care system. File picture: Brian Farrell

More than one tenth of children and young people entering State care for the first time are aged between 16 and 18 years old, prompting fears over a lack of suitable accommodation for these older teens.

Tusla, the child and family agency, revealed to the Irish Examiner that 31 of the 271 young people admitted to State care from January 1 to September 10 this year were aged 16 and over.

The issue of older children coming into State care for the first time was highlighted recently by Tusla chief executive, Kate Duggan.

This article is part of the Care crisis series about the funding of voluntary and community care organisations published online here from Sunday, October 8 and in the 'Irish Examiner' from October 9

She told an event in Cork to mark End Child Poverty Week that the agency is seeing a “significant increase” in the number of teenagers aged between 16 and 18 years old who were never in the care system but whose families are now volunteering them into care because they are unable to cope.

A spokeswoman for the agency said there were approximately 70 young people aged 16 and 17 years placed in special emergency arrangements between October 2022 and September 10 this year, “due to breakdown in home arrangements”.

“It’s not possible to say whether all the young people were first time admissions to care,” she said.

Irish Aftercare Network spokesman Neil Forsyth said it is worrying that so many young people are coming into care so late in their teenage life: 

The care system is in crisis at the moment, with a shortage of foster carers and residential care places. 

“And it has always very difficult to place older teenagers. Foster care is often not an option. 

"With so few residential places available, many of these teenagers are going to be placed in unsuitable accommodation, such as hotels and B&Bs, and they will not receive the level of support they need.

“A further concern is that because they have entered care so late, they will not meet the eligibility criteria for aftercare — which is a minimum of 12 months in care — and therefore they won’t be supported when they reach 18 years. This means that many of these young people could face the prospect of homelessness. 

At present, even for those young people who do meet the eligibility criteria for aftercare, the housing crisis means that there is a severe lack of move-on options for them.

Mr Forsyth said “years of underinvestment” in the care and aftercare systems “means that we are now faced with an unprecedented crisis and a significant number of very vulnerable young people are going to suffer the consequences”.

He urged Roderic O’Gorman, the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, and Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien to ensure that the measures outlined in the government’s recent youth homelessness strategy are implemented as a matter of urgency and for Tusla “to be funded sufficiently to address the enormous gaps in existing service provision”.