Mr. Eamonn Donnelly:

It is short but it will give the committee an insight. If there are any questions, Mr. Cantillon has the working experience to be able to deal with them.

From having worked as a child protection social worker in the past number of years, there are several issues that I believe have contributed to the difficulties that social workers face on a day-to-day basis. There has been a great deal of change in the past 24 months with regard to the restructuring of the child protection sector within Tusla. Married with this, there has been a change with our approach to working with children and families to the Signs of Safety framework. Below are prevalent issues for social workers.

The threshold of risk varies in different offices and counties. Therefore, assessments and decisions vary depending on teams. This makes it difficult when receiving cases previously unknown to social work involvement and for plans being put in place with families.

The nature of child protection services presents difficulties. We need evidence before an action or plan is put in place. Therefore, preventative intervention is lost and social workers are working with families through risk management as opposed to a supportive approach to bring about long-term positive change. This creates families understandably putting blocks to social work intervention.

There is no clear guidance on procedures on founded or unfounded allegations for social workers. Safety planning is often not completed with families where allegations are retracted, often through coercion. This is despite concerns remaining for the children and families due to evidence no longer having weight because of retraction.

The fast-paced nature of child protection work and high caseloads block social workers from completing therapeutic direct work with families and children, resulting in social workers relying on outside services to undertake work that guides our assessment. This can be a costly and time-consuming process.

Working with children and families takes time as does relationship building and meaningful engagement from social workers and families. Given the availability of social workers this is not always achievable, as mentioned, due to high caseloads.

Staff retention is an issue within Tusla at present. Therefore, staff turnover frequently results in teams being unstable and inconsistent. Often this leaves teams low on numbers resulting in social workers taking on colleagues' cases as well as their own. It proves difficult when emergencies occur with families with whom social workers are not familiar especially regarding safety planning and interventions. Although Children First guidelines aim to put statutory obligations on professionals and members of the public to identify and report child protection concerns, in practice this is still a major difficulty facing social workers on a day-to-day basis. There appears to be a lack of consequences for those not upholding their statutory obligations.

As noted, interventions are based on concerns being evidenced. Drug use and alcoholism are only detected through positive screening or by client disclosure. My experience is that clients are not often open about their addiction and therefore social workers rely on co-operation of general practitioners or screenings carried out by addiction services to carry out drug screenings. However, there is major difficulty at present with GPs refusing to undertake such screenings, therefore causing difficulties to social workers in identifying substance misuse and addressing the risk that it poses to children. There is no statutory obligation or guidance for GPs to work with social workers in place with regard to urine analysis.

The fostering department is currently having major difficulty with sourcing and keeping appropriate foster carers. Foster carers have reported to social workers under the child protection theme to the effect that they believe they have not received adequate training or preparation to care for children who often present with high needs and behaviours. Such needs are difficult for inexperienced carers to manage. This lack of training and support often results in placement breakdowns. This is problematic for children who have come into the care system, often experiencing instability or inconsistent care. They may continue to experience this in the care of Tusla. Furthermore as a social worker in child protection much of my work with children in care involves supporting the foster carers, but this is not my role. The fostering department is extremely busy at present and does not appear available to provider carers with the day-to-day support that foster carers require, resulting in the child's social worker carrying out this work. Furthermore, I have concerns regarding the efficiency of foster care assessments being carried out since I have had significant concerns regarding foster carers with whom vulnerable children are placed. While I can appreciate that foster placements are scarce I would have concerns regarding foster carers being passed by committees but who are not able to meet the emotional needs of children. Furthermore, there does not appear to be a functioning placement matching process in place to identify appropriate placement matches for children to foster carers and it is seen as trial and error. Finally there is a significant backlog of children-in-care cases transferring from child protection to children-in-care teams due to understaffing in the children-in-care teams. This results in social workers and the child protection team holding a children-in-care caseload as well as child protection.

I thank the committee for the opportunity to make this statement. In addition to the appendix document forwarded it can be taken as a written submission from Fórsa on the issue.