Ireland

Watchdog finds ‘serious concerns’ about foster service for unaccompanied minors seeking international protection

Hiqa finds carers were approved on emergency basis without necessary mandatory training in fostering and in one case Garda vetting had not been completed

On Tuesday, Hiqa published two inspection reports on the child protection and welfare and foster care services provided by the Separated Children Seeking International Protection team within Tusla. Photograph: iStock

Shauna Bowers
Tue Apr 30 2024 - 14:07

The State’s health service watchdog found “serious concerns about the capacity and sustainability” of the fostering arrangements for unaccompanied children seeking international protection in Ireland.

On Tuesday, the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) published two inspection reports on the child protection and welfare and foster care services provided by the Separated Children Seeking International Protection team within Tusla, the State’s child and family agency.

The team seeks to offer an urgent response to the needs of unaccompanied children who arrive in Ireland.

This was the first time the foster care service provided for these children had been inspected.

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Risks identified included a child being placed in a foster carer before their Garda vetting and a placement being made with a carer who was the subject of an ongoing investigation of an allegation, one report said.

Hiqa found that correct reporting procedures “had not been followed in a timely manner in relation to an allegation by a child in care”.

“Carers were being approved on an emergency basis without having completed the necessary mandatory training in fostering, and in one case Garda vetting had not been completed,” said one inspection report.

Of the eight foster care standards that the services were assessed under, they were found to be substantially compliant under three and not compliant under five.

The inspector said the service was staffed by “committed, hard-working and child-centred teams”, but “they struggled to provide basic services to children in foster care”.

“The service was experiencing severe resourcing challenges,” it said.

Children in foster care were not all allocated to a social worker and were not being visited in line with the regulations, the inspector said.

“Reviews of care plans were not conducted in line with the time frames set out in the regulations and the process for the review of children’s care plans required greater oversight by managers,” it added.

The report said that while it recognises the impact of changes to service provision would need time to take shape, the “slow rate of progress was concerning”.

Following the inspection, management submitted a compliance plan to address issues identified during the inspection. According to Hiqa, some actions in the compliance plan were deemed to be unsatisfactory and did not adequately assure the inspectors the service would come into compliance with required standards.

On the child protection and welfare services, inspectors found it was better supported since the previous Hiqa inspection in February 2023.

However, the follow-up inspection found repeated concerns over high caseloads, with inspectors stating that staff were “under considerable pressure in terms of their capacity to meet the needs of an ever-increasing referral rate of vulnerable children”.

[ ‘Unprecedented’ increase in unaccompanied children seeking asylum in Ireland ]

The core issue of the unmanageable workloads of staff had not been addressed, the report said, adding staff and managers at all levels continued not to be sufficiently supported in what was a crisis-led service environment.

Hiqa said the service was at the initial stages of developing good governance arrangements, but called for further reforms to “ensure that the right systems were in place to deliver a safe and effective service”.

Shauna Bowers

Shauna Bowers

Shauna Bowers is a reporter for The Irish Times

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