Our recent overview report of foster care services found that not all children in foster care were allocated a social worker or were visited by one in line with regulations.
The report is an overview of the inspection and monitoring of the Child and Family Agency (Tusla’s) foster care services conducted in 2019 and 2020. We found that while there were noticeable improvements since the previous inspections in 2018 and 2019, there continued to be areas of non-compliance that require ongoing monitoring and improvement.
Overall, 17 service areas were inspected and our inspectors met with 186 children in care and 44 young people who had left care. We also received 1,416 questionnaires from children in care in which they gave us feedback about their experience in care and what they thought about the service they received. The majority of children spoke highly of their social worker and said they received a good service from them.
Our Head of Children’s Services, Eva Boyle, said: “Our programme of inspection indicated that many service areas made progress in achieving compliance with the standards and improving the service provided to children in care. Well-governed and well-managed services learned from previous inspections to improve their services. This is a significant step in ensuring that the services provided by Tusla to children in care are consistent and equitable. Notwithstanding these improvements, further improvements are required to ensure children in care receive visits in line with regulations, as well as to individual care planning and review arrangements for children in care, and also to ensure adequate numbers of suitable foster care placements are available across service areas.”
Read the full report here.