Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 10 May 2022

Joint Committee On Children, Equality, Disability, Integration And Youth

Foster Care Issues and the Loss of Positive Care Services: Engagement with Tusla

Ms Kate Duggan:

That is something we have introduced in the past 18 months. It has been very much, as the Deputy said, looking at the demographics of the number of children by age profile and it also involves taking account of the number of social workers, the number of commissioned services within an area and the socioeconomic profile of the area. We also need, in consultation with Dr. Anthony O'Leary and Mr. Pat Smyth, to define further a resource allocation model. We have an immature version of it at the moment that is bringing transparency to how we are allocating. We are dealing with legacy issues where posts evolved over time. We are trying to bring a consistency to the number of social workers we would have per child population in the context of the socioeconomic factors that are at play. That is something we are committed to developing and refining over time. However, as Mr. Gloster said, the supply of social workers coming through the educational system is another focus we have. He has had engagements with the Deputy of Further and Higher Education-----

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