Ms Karla Charles:

I concur with everything that Ms Bond has said and will try not to repeat or replicate information. Deputy O'Sullivan raised the need for more social workers. I am sure the members saw the "Prime Time" programme the other night. There was a social worker on it who said she had a case load of 50 children of whom she was only able to see, on average, about 25 in a month. That is a clear indication of how many cases she should have. She should be able to see every one of her young people at least once a month in order to develop a relationship. We all know that such relationships are key to ensuring the safety and well-being of young people in care. They should have somebody to go to if they need help or assistance or want to disclose something. That takes time and investment.

Deputy Neville was wondering about the caseload that a social worker should have. It obviously depends on the complexity of the cases, which will vary. That is where good management and support should come in. If someone has 15 extremely complex cases, it is enough. They may have 25, 30 or 40 cases if the needs of the children are less complex. There are many very happy children living in foster families who are very well supported and looked after. At certain stages in their lives, they may not need a huge amount of intervention by a social worker. That relationship still needs to be maintained, however. Coming back to my point about the turbulent teenage years, if the relationships start to become tumultuous within the foster family, it is important that the young person has developed a relationship with the social worker, who in turn has a relationship with the link worker, who has a relationship with the foster carers. If these relationships are in place, we can deal with issues, have early intervention and provide training and support to those families. It is common sense. It is what all of us would do in our own family situations if our children had problems or issues that needed to be dealt with.

In terms of numbers, it comes back to management and support depending on the complexity of the cases. The social worker on Monday night's "Prime Time" had 50 cases, which was clearly too much. We solve the problem not only by recruiting more social workers, but also by investing in them and supporting them. We have a lot of young social workers who have not been on the job very long and lack experience. They get overwhelmed because they are not supported. They are at the front line of raw, sometimes brutal, sensitive and traumatic situations. They need support in order that they do not burn out, and in order that they are able to develop their expertise and learn to handle situations better as they progress in their careers. Instead, we have social workers leaving because it is just too much and they get overwhelmed. We need to retain social workers by way of a number of measures. Obviously, we need to make sure they are being adequately remunerated. More important, however, we need to ensure that the infrastructure and supports are there so that they receive proper management and support in dealing with those difficult cases.

In terms of aftercare, I concur with everything that Ms Bond has said about supported accommodation for 18 year-olds and the transition period. We have made numerous submissions on aftercare over the last years. We brought a group of young people in to the then Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Senator James Reilly. He had a very frank discussion with them directly. It is a big problem for EPIC that young people leaving care who are not in full-time education only receive supports until the age of 21. They are generally the most vulnerable group. They are the ones who had tumultuous childhoods, were probably in different residential homes and foster families, had very broken educational experiences, may not have done a leaving certificate or, if they did one, did very poorly. They are not in a position to continue on in education and have not been shown any examples of what areas they could pursue instead. We have always said that this very vulnerable group of young people needs to be better supported. To be giving them less support than those in full-time education is counter-intuitive. It is going to create greater expense for the State and greater problems further on. Scotland has invested much more significantly than we have and is a good comparative example. It is now supporting young people up to age 25 and 27 in terms of aftercare supports. That is a minimum. Under Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures, BOBF, we are supporting young people up to the age of 25, yet we are no longer supporting the most vulnerable of our young people in care at 21 or 23 if they are in full-time education. I would be very happy to provide more information on this. We have material up on our website. We would be very happy to meet with the Deputy in respect of aftercare at another time.

On the cost issue of public versus private foster care, the main point I was trying to raise has to do with analysis. We just need to look at what is being provided by the private foster agencies and what is being provided by Tusla. The priority must be the well-being of the child in question, regardless of the cost. If it is going to cost much more in terms of what the private foster companies are providing, then that is what is needed.

However, it has definitely been noted that foster carers prefer to be with a private foster care organisation because they receive better helpline support after hours and their link workers tend to have smaller case numbers. Therefore, they are going to receive more support. In terms of the foster carers themselves, they get more support from the private providers than from Tusla currently. What we really need is greater analysis and a breakdown of what is being provided in those figures. This is information I have footnoted in my opening submission as coming from an article in The Irish Timesrecently. What we need is a great analysis of what that includes. Does it include the cost of the social worker and payments to foster carers? It would be beneficial for the committee to raise this as an issue to find out what is being provided and what value for money is being obtained.

EPIC sits on two foster care committees. Our advocacy manager sits on one and another of our advocates sits on the other. Their feedback is that it is hugely beneficial and that the committees are extremely thorough. A great deal of time and effort goes in from everyone on them and they are an invaluable resource to have. I concur with what IFCA said. It is about ensuring the members on the committees are up to date and are given time. There is a great deal of background reading and investment from the individuals involved which must go into preparing for each committee meeting and they should be supported in that regard in order that the decisions they make are the right ones.

Deputy Neville asked about triggers for young children moving into care. There is a body of research and data which I will not go into. Generally, the hard data relate to emotional, physical, sexual and neglect issues. They are the common reasons. Tusla holds data on this. There is a wide and broad body of available data.

On the booklets and best practice, we should have all this sorted by now, but we do not. There is certainly very good practice. I will defer to my colleague, Ms Guinan, who will talk a little bit more about some of the work we have done in EPIC through some of our fora.