Ms Kate Duggan:

Okay. I will take the queries on the private providers and unregulated placements and then ask Ms Murphy and Mr. Brophy to comment on supervision and social work. On the private providers, going on how I see it in my note, these are struggling with staffing. It is important to say that this year we have established two forums to bring together the community and voluntary sector and the private sector, from where services are procured on our behalf. This is being done to look at what the issues are in respect of recruitment and retention in the context of training, upskillling awareness and all those things. These issues are being experienced in the community and voluntary sector. When we talk about the strategic actions we are taking to try to reduce the number of special emergency arrangements, this endeavour is concerned with trying to scale capacity, specifically in the community and voluntary sector. We know that for those providers pay restoration is an issue, as is the payment of costs in respect of residential placements. We are working with them around increases in this regard. We need the community and voluntary sector. The nine houses we are scaling are statutory, but we want the community and voluntary sector to scale this.

Turning to unregulated placements, when we take the week I referenced in respect of the 62 young people in special emergency arrangements, almost three-quarters of them are in a privately-leased property, such as an apartment or a house, and they have an allocated social worker. These young people are a priority and every one of them has an allocated social worker and a care plan. These placements must be approved following consideration of all the different options available. They get their weekly visits and the benefits of what is a residential placement without getting the regulation. Regarding this lack of regulation, we are trying to encourage new providers to the market to move towards becoming registered providers of single-occupancy emergency placements and having an agreed fixed cost in this regard. This is where we are at in terms of trying to ensure these providers are becoming more regulated. I say this because what we have seen, particularly post-Covid-19, is a significant increase in need. As I said, the 41% in the context of placement breakdown concerns situations where the Garda is involved and where we must provide accommodation. No young person is left without a bed or a safe place on any night. It is very important for us to be able to respond to this need.

Regarding fostering, reference was made to the 76% not recommending it. We know that survey was specifically targeted at the financial supports provided to foster carers in respect of the fostering allowance and the pension. We also know from our own consultations, though, that, as I said earlier, foster carers want other supports apart from those concerned with fostering. They want the peer support workers we have allocated, the therapeutic supports, more consistent communication and all these things we have spoken about. This is what we feel will attract new foster carers.

Turning to Barnahus, I know the Senator has referred this to the Department, and it may wish to comment on that, but work is going on at a national level in terms of the interdepartmental group in respect of rolling out the Barnahus model to the south, with a location in Cork, and to the east, with a location in Dublin. I can respond in more detail on this point if it is not answered. Mr. Brophy will comment on the supervision caseload and the kind of impact and work involved when a parent is in prison.