Dr. Valerie O'Brien:

I am the chairperson of the special interest group on foster care in the Irish Association of Social Workers, IASW. I am also an associate professor at UCD and a research practitioner with substantial experience in service delivery in relation to foster care. I am joined by my colleague, Áine McGuirk, member of IASW and an experienced senior practitioner with significant experience in foster fare and former chair of IASW.

A key priority goal of the IASW is to influence a change agenda in the delivery and development of foster care services. By way of background, the Irish Association of Social Workers was founded in 1971 and has approximately 5,000 registered social workers. Social work is the key profession in the recruitment, assessment, review and support and supervision of families providing foster care services in Ireland, as well as the primary support for children placed in foster care.

As the professional representative group for social workers there are five main issues I want talk about very briefly. The first one is the recruitment and retention of both foster carers and social workers. The second is support services for birth parents of children in care. The third is access to services for children and families, and we will show how it is a central dilemma for Government. The fourth is child-centred issues, particularly adoption and placement breakdown. The fifth is foster service delivery.

The first issue, which is the recruitment and retention of foster carers and which my colleague, Ms O'Toole, already referred to, poses significant difficulties. Currently, our foster carers provide care for 90% of all children in foster care. The central concern is that is a decreasing number. I was 92% two years ago and 95% about seven years ago. This is linked to changing demographies, ongoing stresses of living, the effect of significant traumas experienced by children prior to coming into care, the need to satisfy regulatory requirements and the challenge of ensuring safe care for all in the foster household. Providing foster care placements in the child's community is a challenge, with children being placed far from home. This impacts significantly on their relationship with their birth family and wider community and on their identify formation. This poses significant difficulties in facilitating good access arrangements.

The retention of foster carers in the system is affected by the manner in which complaints about them are processed and these concerns have not been alleviated by aspects of the implementation of the child abuse substantiation policy, CASP, introduced by Tusla in 2022. The recruitment and retention of social workers has been presented as a major challenge to various Oireachtas committees over the years. The allocation of a sufficient number of social workers is imperative to developing a fully supportive working relationship and support system with the foster family but also, I would advocate, with the birth family.

On support services for birth parents of children in care, there are almost no services dedicated to the support of birth parents. Parents who lose their children to care represent one of the most vulnerable sections of Irish society and their already immense problems are compounded by the loss of their children to the care system. Previously, social workers working with children in care were named the child and family social worker. However, in recent years those social workers have been framed as the children in care social worker, thus reference to the birth family is lost.

On access to services for children in care, interdepartmental action is required to address the complexity of ensuring that the State, acting in loco parentis, can fulfil its responsibility towards this cohort of children because the State is the parent for children in care while addressing its responsibilities towards all children, including those who are vulnerable and not in State care. That we see as the single biggest challenge for the Government.

While there has been some development in addressing the individual child’s needs, therapy services specifically aimed at addressing multiple and complex relationships in the networks of relationships, including professionals, are urgently required. The difficulties of children who require state care are well documented, and placement in a foster home is just the beginning of the process to cater for the full range of a traumatised child’s needs. However, services geared only to a child's needs will not address the wider relational issues. Structures in Tusla need attention to ensure flexible service delivery and provide a consistent, knowledgeable, and holistic service for children in care and their foster carers. A greater organisational focus on task over role would be an important first step.

On child-centred issues, there are two major issues. The first is adoption for children in care. The availability of adoption to those children in care, where this is the appropriate and proportionate response, is a welcome development, but caution is also required. Statistics from the annual reports of the Adoption Authority of Ireland show that there has been little significant growth and the vast majority of children currently being adopted, because the process takes about three years, are aged close to 18 years of age. Greater attention to this context, and greater attention to how adoption is currently being used within the care planning process, are needed. Currently, we only have data coming from the Adoption Authority of Ireland, which captures the end of the process, not what is currently happening in the system. We also need enhanced placement and aftercare planning for the cohort of children seeking asylum.

Placement breakdown is a particular concern for IASW. Placements can break down, including after a child has spent a significant part of their life with the foster family. There is an urgent need for research into placement disruption as well as into placements that do not break down, as each cohort may provide useful information for the other and for our overall understanding of the relevant issues. In the short term, Tusla information systems need to collate this information at a national level while considering the complexity of pathways into care, and breakdown processes and outcomes. Some children are coming into care at infancy and placements break down when they are 12 years old. Other children come into care at 16 years of age and the placement breaks down. The cohort of children is very different, but we do not have a national picture.

In terms of foster care service delivery, we are particularly concerned about the place of privatisation in the child welfare system. We see that the commodification of care through privatisation is a serious policy issue that requires immediate attention. It is not just within foster care and children's services but elsewhere.

A Government-mandated working party to take on the task of reviewing foster care policy, the legislation, resources and best practice is required. IASW, through a publication in 2017, and further through a publication in 2018, laid out the structures for this working party in great detail with a perspective very much on the lived reality and how it needs to take account of the wider policy but also current Government structures. The paper concludes with a range of recommendations that are intended to provide a basis for discussion between the various stakeholders.

Our view is that the following measures would enhance the service delivery. First, there is a need for a Government-mandated working party, on which I believe our colleagues in IFCA will further expand. This group would review foster care policy, the legislation, resources, and best practice and consider outcomes in alignment with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Leadership is key and the project should be sufficiently resourced to manage it at a level that reflects the importance of this work for the children of Ireland.

Under the leadership of the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, the working party would establish a shared, objective assessment of the suitability and availability of foster care for a range of different childhood care needs across Ireland. It would engage with relevant Departments, in particular the Departments of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Education, Social Protection and Justice. It would co-ordinate the contribution of key executive agencies, including Tusla, the Child and Family Agency, the Health Service Executive, education, local authorities, An Garda Síochána, professional and representative bodies, academia, and the private and voluntary sector. It would collect key contributions from those with lived experience of foster care and their representatives, including EPIC, birth families, social workers and foster carers. Finally, it would build and support a coalition of stakeholders to establish a vision for fostering in Ireland that would support, champion, and promote the delivery of shared objectives.

Foster care is the backbone of the child welfare system in Ireland. It is one of the great successes of our child welfare system. However, we are very concerned that with the diminishing numbers, we are beginning to see a major slippage.