Staff face 'considerable pressure' to provide services for unaccompanied refugee children

In November last year, the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) carried out two inspections into the child protection, welfare and foster care services provided by Tusla. File photo: Sasko Lazarov/Photocall Ireland

Staff providing urgent services for unaccompanied asylum seeker children in Ireland are under “considerable pressure” to meet the needs of the increasing number of children who are referred, according to the latest inspection reports.

In November last year, the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) carried out two inspections into the child protection, welfare and foster care services provided by Tusla.

First inspection

The first inspection focused on the effectiveness of Tusla’s governance of the services provided for separated children seeking international protection, as well as the quality and safety of services received.

While Hiqa inspectors said they found the service was now “better supported” following a fundamental shift since its last inspection in February 2023, concerns over “high caseloads” were found.

Staff were found under “considerable pressure” to try to meet the needs of the increasing rate of vulnerable children who were being referred to the service.

The report added that “the core issue of the unmanageable workloads of staff had not been addressed”. Staff and managers at all levels were also reported to “not be sufficiently supported” in what is a “crisis-led environment”.

However, inspectors said Tusla has taken steps to address some of the most urgent issues that the service is facing. This includes prioritising applications for children in voluntary care through the courts.

But additional investments in resources, human resources as well as IT systems from Tusla have not “materialised quickly enough”, which has led to widespread delays.

Second inspection

The second inspection, which focused on foster care services found “serious concerns” about the capacity and sustainability of the arrangements and how it impacted the children.

The report said that while it was staffed by committed, hard-working and child-centred teams, they “struggled to provide basic services to children in foster care.” This led to the foster care service experiencing severe “resourcing challenges”. 

It also found that not all children were appointed a social worker and were not being visited in line with regulations.

Hiqa further added that the review of care plans was also not being carried out in line with time frames set out in regulations and that the process of reviewing plans required greater oversight by managers. Practice in relation to safeguarding and child protection also required improvement.

The report added that fostering assessments were comprehensive and that all foster carers had an allocated link worker and “felt supported.”