Mr. Joe McCarthy:

Many suggestions have been made and colleagues around the country have submitted more suggestions. There is no shortage of suggestions on what needs to be done to maintain staff. The obvious ones are a good working environment and provide support staff, including administrative staff. The key point must be that the workforce is the most valuable resource one has when delivering a service. It is important to note that not all social workers within Tusla are leaving. The turnover rate of staff is more specific to this cohort of people who work on the front line of child protection and family welfare. There have been a lot of good developments happening in Tusla, such as preventative work and the involvement of practitioners in research but there is one key question, namely, who is going to do it? Retaining what one already has and building supports in order that people who come in will want to stay is key. If one can stop the exodus of so many social workers, then one can build up one's cohort bit by bit and people will be attracted to the work. That is why we need to be cautious when we talk about recruitment and recruiting more social workers. There is an assumption that all childcare leaders or workers will want to become child protection social workers. Maybe they would if the role was defined in a different way and they had the capacity to do all aspects of the work that they want to do.

There is a danger if one follows the example in England where one has a quick course to convert people from certain professions into child protection because that option is not working there. We must also be careful not to dumb down the profession. Many other professions would not accept conversations of having a quick entry and dumbing down the profession. Also, there is a danger of reducing social work to tasks, and the situation whereby the nice tasks are taken away from social workers and given to someone else, while leaving the social workers with the heavy lifting, must be avoided. I wish to respond to the point made about access to fostering. Other people can do access. If one talks about the social worker having statutory responsibility, then access can be a very important part of that, as is building up a relationship with the child, the family and the foster family.