Ms Bernadette Neville:

We should remind ourselves that foster care committees approve applications from prospective foster carers. They work within the national assessment framework and the foster care guidelines. The Deputy's first question was on the need for reform. Across the country and all service deliveries for children in foster care and families, we see mixed approaches and lack of standardisation even though we have frameworks in place. Different areas are maybe making decisions on different things, and prioritising different things as well. I am aware that the foster care committees would review their own practices and generate a report from that. The question then is what happens to any learning that might be drawn from that. Does it translate into looking at developing and enhancing practice and standardisation? That is my question. Where does the information go? Can we get access to it? From our end we are not seeing any considerable engagement with the experiences of foster carers attending and participating in those. Some areas are better and may be more open to that. Yes, we possibly need to look at that again and look to see how they are functioning, and who makes up and constitutes the foster care committee. What do we do with the learning from it to improve and strengthen practice?

I also want to come in on aftercare. Last year we made a joint submission with EPIC. We reviewed Tusla's national aftercare policy. It was striking, from the perspective of foster care, that within the current policy provisions the role, contribution and status of foster carers is invisible. It is not really named, articulated or elevated within the current structures. We ran a number of consultations with our foster carers, and we know from speaking with them that they feel that once aftercare is considered they are very much put to one side. Their contribution and role is not really understood. We were also hearing that the aftercare needs to be looked at again in terms of children with disabilities and neurodiverse children. There is also a need to work alongside Tusla and the HSE, and that joint protocol to see where the cracks are. By all accounts, we are hearing from our members that there are significant cracks there for children with disabilities. That really needs to be looked at, and needs a standalone examination of the whole process. It is not good enough that foster carers who have given life long commitments to children, and are nearly hitting retirement themselves, have to be concerned about the supports available for the young people they are looking after. That also applies to financial supports. I definitely think that we need to start moving away from the language of aftercare, and look more at the continuum of care. It is not just that you hit 18 and are in a different space now and have finished care. We know these children have complex needs that will run right through into adulthood and beyond. Again, from consultations with our foster carers, we really need to look again at all of the provisions around aftercare. We need to look at what foster carers bring to that, what they can contribute to that, and where they sit in that framework. We also need to hear the stories they have about their experiences. From that, we will learn how to improve things.