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 Kerry 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 follow-up risk-based inspection of the Kerry foster care service in September 2022. The risk-based inspection primarily focused on assessing progress within the foster care service with respect to agreed actions by the area manager to address risks to children. This was in response to previous inspections and significant risk issues identified within the service in 2020 and 2021. In the context of this inspection, the standards inspected related to the identified risks. Of the five standards assessed, four were substantially compliant and one was non-compliant moderate.

The inspection found that significant difficulties had been experienced by the service since the previous inspection that impacted the service's ability to meet the standards and regulations. The high turnover of social workers continued to negatively impact on the quality of support provided to children in care. Despite this, the service area had reduced the risks and while not achieving compliance in all standards assessed, had moved to improved levels of compliance. 

Senior managers provided strong leadership during what had been an extremely challenging period for the service. Managerial oversight had improved and a restructuring of the child-in-care team provided greater oversight and support. However, the instability of the workforce capacity due to vacancies remained a significant factor that influenced the service’s ability to progress and maintain improvements in the quality of service provision. 

The inspection found that 37 children in care did not have an allocated social worker. Children in care continued to face changes in their social worker more frequently since the previous inspection. It was also found that case records required improvement as gaps were identified. The service had improved the frequency of statutory visits taking place, however, there were areas for further development. Not all children in care were supported to express their views, wishes and feelings to inform the planning of their care and further work was required to address these challenges and improve practice. The position of an independent reviewing officer to chair child-in-care reviews had been vacant for six months which led to 50 outstanding child-in-care reviews, however, the service had subsequently appointed an independent reviewing officer and conducted 132 child-in-care reviews from November 2021 to August 2022. 

The majority of supervisory visits to foster carers were in line with the frequency set out in the service area's policy. However, where foster carers required further supervisory visits, if issues and difficulties occurred, they had not always received this. 

The ‘Joint Protocol for interagency collaboration between the Health Service Executive and TUSLA to promote the best interests of children and families’, was in operation, however, more progress was needed in supporting and implementing the needs of children in care living with moderate to severe disabilities, as there was not always timely and consistent access to assessments and specialist interventions for children with disabilities.

There were areas of good practice found, such as statutory visits, where social workers met the child in the foster care home and also met the child at other locations and undertook activities. Additionally, social workers spent time with children during statutory visits to provide a safe space to speak about their wishes and feelings about significant issues. Foster carers were provided with a platform to express their views, concerns and recommendations for service improvement. The service had also setup a support group for foster carers and also a mentor and an outside agency had started to provide training to foster carers. The area was also at the early stages of establishing a support group for biological children of foster carers.

The service has submitted a plan outlining how it intends to come into full compliance. The inspection report and compliance plan can be found at the link below.