The Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) has today published an inspection report on the Child and Family Agency (Tusla’s) foster care services in the Waterford Wexford service area. 

HIQA is authorised by the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth under Section 69 of the Child Care Act, 1991, as amended by Section 26 of the Child Care (Amendment) Act 2011, to inspect foster care services provided by Tusla and to report on its findings to the Minister, and to inspect services taking care of a child on behalf of Tusla, including non-statutory providers of foster care. HIQA monitors foster care services against the 2003 National Standards for Foster Care.

HIQA conducted a thematic inspection of the foster care service in Waterford Wexford in May 2022. These thematic inspections are primarily focused on assessing the efficacy of governance arrangements across foster care services and the impact these arrangements have for children in receipt of foster care. This thematic programme is the third and final phase of a three-phased schedule of inspection programmes monitoring foster care services. Of the eight standards assessed, four were moderately non-compliant, three were substantially compliant and one was compliant. 

There were clear and established governance systems in place to manage the foster care service and to provide assurance of the safety and quality of the service being provided to children, their foster carers and families. However, the effectiveness of these varied due to significant organisational risks in the service. 

There were areas of good practice found on inspection, such as the service’s response to the complex needs of children in foster care, as well as the arrangements in place for the management of cases awaiting an allocated social worker. Multidisciplinary and partnership working were well established in the area and this supported good child-centred care planning. 

HIQA found that the allocation of social workers to all children was critical in driving improvements in service quality. At the time of this inspection, 33% (122) of all children in foster care were without an allocated social worker. The recruitment, timely assessment and approval of a range of foster carers to best serve children’s needs in the area was also required. Case file auditing and better record management systems needed to be developed, in order to provide better oversight and understanding of the children’s journey through the service and the impact of support on improving outcomes for them. 

The risks in the service area had been well recognised by the management team. At the time of this inspection, a core focus of the service’s business plan was to undertake a systemic review and reconfiguration of the service’s structures, processes and output, and to drive an increase in the activity of the service, in order to meet service improvement targets and national corporate objectives. 

In addition, following this inspection, HIQA requested the area complete a provider assurance report in relation to identified gaps in the management and monitoring of the foster care service. The area provided HIQA with satisfactory assurances in relation to how the service would address these issues.

The inspection report can be found at the link below.