Ms Fidelma Guinan:

EPIC stands for listening to young people, which is how young people have told us many things around not understanding what care is, the terminology of care reviews and not using age-appropriate language for young people. Our fora are doing fantastic work in line with Tusla. Dublin north city is developing an A to Z of words for children who are taken into care. It is sad in a way what happened in Donegal where the Donegal forum had so many placement breakdowns and emergency moves. Social workers in that position have two different stresses. They have to find a bed for a child and to ensure he or she is safe with child protection guidelines being followed. All the young person wants to know is that he or she is going to another place, what the Wi-Fi code is and whether he or she can eat his or her own food. It is the things that get lost. We have to remember that child-centred placements and planning must come first.

We tried to get the following clarified before we came. It is a question we want to ask. TACTIC and the Department of Children and Youth Affairs developed an amazing booklet which was launched two years ago. It is a story booklet containing guidelines for children entering care. It is age appropriate for two different levels of younger and older groups entering foster and residential care. We would love to see that. Tusla committed to giving the booklet out for any admission to care but we are not sure that is happening. We would love if the committee could look into it. We are just waiting on the answer. It is an unbelievable resource which, and this is key, was developed over two years by care leavers and people in care who are the best experts.

We would love if young people coming into care were told about EPIC and of their entitlement to an independent advocate. We would love to see our materials forming part of any booklet sent out when admissions to care occur. That is not happening currently and we have trouble, as do all our sister organisations internationally, accessing children in foster care because of data protection and the gatekeepers. We have direct access to every residential and special care unit and we provide a visiting service at Oberstown, but we would like to see improvements around our access to children in foster care. The core work we do is listening to children in care, and we would love that to be mentioned.