Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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Apologies have been received from Deputy Alan Dillon. I welcome: Ms Marissa Ryan, chief executive, and Ms Brenda Kneafsey, advocacy officer for the western region, from Empowering People in Care, EPIC; Ms Niamh McCarthy, head of the national support service for parents of children in care, and Ms Siobhan Greene, director of children's services, from Barnardos; and Ms Jacinta Swann, family support services manager and Ms Iris Mockler, advocacy worker, from Clarecare.

I will go through the normal housekeeping matters. I remind members of the constitutional requirement that they must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex in order to participate in public meetings. I will not permit a member to participate in circumstances where he or she is not adhering to that constitutional requirement. If any member attempts to participate from outside the precincts, he or she will be asked to leave the meeting. In this regard, I ask any member who is participating via Microsoft Teams to confirm that he or she is on the Leinster House campus before making his or her contribution.

In advance of inviting our guests to deliver their opening statement, I advise them of the following in respect of parliamentary privilege. Witnesses who are participating from the committee room are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against any person or entity either by name or in such a way as to make him, her it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory with regard to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction. In the case of witnesses appearing virtually before the committee, there is uncertainty as to whether parliamentary privilege would apply to their evidence from a location outside of the parliamentary precincts of Leinster House. Therefore, if they are directed by me to cease giving evidence in terms of a particular matter, it is imperative that they comply with any such direction.

Each organisation has five minutes speaking time for an opening statement, which will be followed by questions and answers with members. First, is EPIC, then Barnardos and finally Clarecare. I invite Ms Brenda Kneafsey to make the opening statement on behalf of EPIC.

Ms Brenda Kneafsey:

EPIC is a national organisation that works with children in State care, young people in aftercare services and young adults with experience of the care system. We work with children and young people in residential care, special care, foster care and relative care, as well as those accommodated by the State in homeless services under section V of the Child Care Act, and at the Oberstown Children Detention Campus. We also work with young adults in aftercare services and those with care experience up to the age of 26.

Through our national advocacy service, EPIC provides support to pregnant young people in care and young people who have left care and who are now parents themselves, and whose children or unborn children have been referred to Tusla. We thank the committee for inviting us here today to share our experience of working with care-leaver parents. We hope that our insights will inform the committee on how best this group can be supported.

EPIC recognises that care-experienced young people can start their families earlier than their peers. We are also familiar with the intergenerational issues that can result in the children of care leavers coming into care themselves, including inequality, poverty, lack of access to services, poor housing, addiction and homelessness. Care-leaver parents often face additional vulnerabilities resulting from their own care experience, including limited or no family support, and poor social and community networks, often living outside their own local areas. In addition, parents who have been in care can lack self-esteem and self-confidence, and often struggle to build trusting relationships as a result of their experience in the care system. This, alongside the stigma and prejudice which care-experienced young people continue to face in society, can result in care-leaver parents struggling to seek support with parenting, and they are often dependent on professionals when living independently.

EPIC believes there is a need for a dedicated, independent support service for parents whose children are coming into care or are in care. We welcome the development of the new pilot service being led by Barnardos and initiated by Tusla, which members will hear about today.

Through our national advocacy service, EPIC works with care-leaver parents who have agreed to voluntary care agreements with Tusla, as well as those who are in the courts in relation to supervision orders, emergency care orders and interim care orders or full-care orders. Some of these young people can be quite vulnerable due to learning difficulties, mental health issues and experience of addiction or domestic violence. Referrals for advocacy support for care-leaver parents often come from these young people themselves, but also from their peers, Tusla social work and aftercare teams, former foster carers, residential services and solicitors, all of whom recognise that care-leaver parents need specific and dedicated supports.

The points at which advocates become involved with care-leaver parents in respect of their children vary greatly, from pre-birth case conferences and child protection case conferences to the court processes of supervision orders, emergency care orders, interim care orders and full-care order hearings. We also become involved when parents are engaging with social workers about the care planning and child-in-care reviews for their children. Throughout our engagement with parents, we often support them to work with the range of State agencies involved with these families, which can include social protection, the HSE, housing, legal aid and Tusla. The number of agencies involved reflects the range of systems and processes these parents must navigate, often with limited or no support.

The experience of having a child taken into care is traumatic, and we know that care-experienced parents never want their children to be placed in care, even though this may be in the child’s best interests. We find that the interactions between care-leaver parents and social workers can be additionally heightened as these parents can be traumatised from their own experience of care. The parents can also feel judged by family and friends or their partner’s families. Care-leaver parents can sometimes struggle with the parental assessment options offered. While there are a variety of assessments used in Ireland, there are limited assessment options which keep parents and children together in supported situations. However, we have recently seen some examples of innovative practice where a vulnerable care-leaver and their newborn were placed together in a foster-type placement.

Court processes are another daunting experience. For parents to have advocacy support in court, all parties involved in the case must agree as cases are held in cameraand judges make the final decision as to whether an advocate can be present. This can be intimidating for the care-leaver parent who may fear being in court without their advocate’s support. Parents' experiences in the court space vary across the country due to the absence of dedicated family courts with a specialised Judiciary, and we welcome the Minister, Deputy McEntee’s, recent announcement of the long-awaited family justice strategy and its vision for reform of the family justice system. The court sitting can also be difficult for care-leaver parents who have to be present at court until their case is called, and who must endure the lack of privacy in court buildings, including the lack of appropriate spaces for parents to read court reports and speak to their solicitors. EPIC looks forward to the establishment of the new family court complex at Hammond Lane, which should rectify some of these issues.

In the court room, care-leaver parents can struggle to understand the interactions between the solicitors, those giving evidence and the directions of the judges in the case. EPIC has seen many examples of good practice whereby judges who recognise the vulnerability of the parents have made efforts to ensure they understand what is happening and are given opportunities to have their views heard, and practices that respect the dignity of the parent should be adopted by all professionals involved in the case. Against this backdrop, EPIC believes there is a need for specific support in the following key areas: ensuring parental understanding of the child protection and welfare system in Ireland, the associated processes and how to engage meaningfully with these; guaranteeing parental understanding of the court system as it relates to child and family law, particularly in relation to the different types of court orders; assisting parents to navigate the court environment, building awareness of the different stakeholders’ engagement and the format of how cases are conducted; and understanding the information Tusla holds about parents and their families.

EPIC believes the State has a particular duty to care-leaver parents by virtue of the fact these parents were themselves once children in care, and the State was acting in loco parentisfor them. EPIC would like to see better recognition of care-leaver parents, and to have this cohort prioritised for necessary supports and services. Collaboration between the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, the Department of Justice, the Department of Social Protection, the Department of Housing and Local Government, and the Department of Health is necessary if we are to break the intergenerational cycle which leads to young people leaving care and then having their children taken into care. Early intervention and prevention work, spearheaded by Tusla and the HSE, is critical to lessen the cycle of care within these families. We welcome the Barnardos pilot project on support for parents of children in care and we urge this committee to monitor the progress of this project closely. The findings should enable a clear assessment of the parental experiences when children come into care and the range of approaches used across the country, and highlight good practice to promote consistency in approach and response to the needs of these parents. We must at all times remember that the rights and dignity of parents must be observed when children come into care. I thank the committee and we look forward to the discussion.

Ms Siobhan Greene:

I thank the committee for inviting us to provide information on our new parental advocacy and information service for parents of children in care. Barnardos provides trauma-informed services to vulnerable children and their families who have been affected by traumatic life situations such as: poverty; abuse; parental mental health challenges; neglect; separation; bereavement; and parental addiction. We offer a range of early intervention and targeted services in over 50 service locations in family homes, schools and communities. Our services are needs-led, outcomes-focused and based on the latest evidence and research.

The Children’s Rights Alliance, CRA, issued a tender in November 2021 for the establishment of a service to support parents of children in care, with the selection of the provider overseen by an advisory group of independent experts. Service specifications as set out in the tender were to support the advocacy and information needs of parents of children in care. Barnardos applied and was awarded the contract in June 2022. The service is funded by Tusla but a CRA project oversight group has been established to maintain independence of the service from Tusla. Pilot site locations were selected on the basis of the highest rates of children in care per 1,000 children, namely Dublin north city, Wexford and Waterford.

There are three distinct elements to the service. The first is an advocacy service for parents of children in care in the areas I mentioned - Dublin north city, Wexford and Waterford. The aim of this strand is to empower and enable parents to actively participate in child care proceedings relating to their child. The specific service will differ for each parent depending on the duration of the care order and different pathways through care, among other things. The service will work in partnership with all stakeholders to provide parents with information to understand what is happening now, the rationale for previous decisions and to help them contribute to future plans. It will also advocate for fair process; help parents understand their rights and responsibilities; support parents to be strong, grounded and solution-focused; support parents in strengthening their relationships with key stakeholders and decision-makers; and prepare them for and support them in attendance at meetings and court hearings and signpost them to therapeutic and other services.

The second strand is an information and advice service for all parents of children in care across the country. This will be provided through a variety of channels. First, a dedicated web presence will be developed to give information to parents through a variety of media including animations, videos, resource material and tip sheets, and developing a route map of care proceedings with key points of information. We have also established a helpline, which is available on Monday and Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., and this will increase to five mornings per week once the full staff complement is in place in the service in January. We will also develop a series of workshops and webinars for parents.

The third aspect of the service is robust monitoring and evaluation. A systematic approach to monitoring and evaluation will be established in order that we can observe trends, track progress and consider achievement of sustainable outcomes. The purpose of monitoring these trends and data so carefully is to easily track the success of the service; whether the service is of high quality; if parents’ needs are being met in a timely manner; and if there are adjustments that need to be made quickly to make sure the service is more effective. An impact evaluation will also be completed to establish the outcomes of the service and its impact on the service users and the wider system.

The service has been in the process of recruitment since June 2022. When fully staffed in January 2023 we will have four parent advocates. This will include two in Dublin, one in Waterford and one in Wexford. We will also have one information and advice worker, one administrator and one service manager, Ms Niamh McCarthy, who is with me. The service has been in operation for five weeks so it is only in its infancy. We started on 17 October 2022 on a phased basis, connected to when staff are available to start. To date we have received 11 referrals for the advocacy service. Nine of these are currently open and two are completed. There has been a mixture of self-referrals and third-party referrals from social workers, solicitors and probation. We have received six contacts to our information and advice service to date.

The establishment of this service is a positive development to ensure parents can be active participants in what can be a challenging aspect of their lives. Many of the parents of children in care have experienced unresolved childhood traumas and have multiple and complex needs. These traumas impact on parents’ abilities to engage or respond appropriately in their child’s care. Parents of children in care can feel powerlessness, shame, anger, frustration, isolation and exclusion. Parents want to be included and involved in matters pertaining to their children. Our advocacy and information service is designed to address these needs, making sure information is shared in creative ways, removing obstacles to maximize active participation and seeking to create opportunities to empower the parent’s voice. The ultimate aim is to improve the quality of life for children in care by improving the engagement of their parents in the child care system.

Ms Jacinta Swann:

I am principal social worker and manager of the Clarecare family support service. I thank the committee for inviting me. I am accompanied by Ms. Iris Mockler, one of Clarecare’s advocacy workers, who works directly with parents of children in care. My opening statement is based on consultations with parents of children in care over many years. Examples of what the parents have told us will be shared as a way of bringing them into the room with us. I will outline the work we do with parents for the wellbeing of children and the importance of their contribution in the care process.

Our Tusla-funded advocacy service for parents and our aftercare service for young people leaving care form part of Clarecare’s suite of family support services. I have managed both services since their inception 20 years ago. Over that time in the advocacy service, we have worked with over 200 parents, some of whom have been with us for over ten years. The advocacy service evolved from parents asking who is there for them at the point their child is being placed in care. Parents explained that at their greatest vulnerability, when they are often in shock, grieving and overwhelmed, social work support is reduced for them, as the focus moves on to the child in care, foster carers and review systems. This shift compounds the distress and isolation felt by parents, who often have little or no support to navigate the system. Parents describe the experience of having a child taken into care as similar to the death of a child, returning home to an empty house, often alone, and sitting in an overwhelming silence surrounded by their child’s things. As one parent described it, "it can feel like your soul is sucked out of your body". Parents speak about holding feelings of shame, failure and guilt. Some express relief when their child is cared for and achieving well when they know they are unable to provide this.

The Clarecare advocacy service has two part-time advocates. It is a support service for parents of children in the care of Tusla in the Clare area. Three key responsibilities of the advocate worker are assisting parents to prepare for meetings, attending child-in-care reviews with the parent and having three-way meetings with social workers. An overall role of the advocate worker is to support positive communication between the parent, social workers and foster carers with a view to ultimately supporting the child’s wellbeing. We also run a support group to help reduce parent’s isolation, as well as parent participation initiatives. Parents have an input in our service design, delivery and materials. One development during Covid was in response to parents asking what to say after "Hello" on a WhatsApp call to their children. From this we developed a resource booklet around using technology to create positive connections, which supported all parts of the care system.

Neglect is the primary reason for children being taken into care. This is often unintentional neglect, a by-product of a variety of interconnected social and personal issues. Parents are mostly mothers, often parenting alone and living in financial poverty. Parents often experience obstacles to understanding and engaging in care planning processes. Working with parents can be difficult and slow. The chaos and distress in a parent’s life still exist after his or her child is placed in care. Parents suffer emotional reactions and contradictory feelings arising from the experience and trauma of the loss of their child. This loss can express itself in anger and denial. Parents sometimes describe how hard it is to face the pain they have caused their children and feelings of powerlessness from the lack of information and participation in the process. This can lead to frustration, anger and sometimes aggressive and intimidating behaviour. This can also lead to non-attendance at meetings or family visits.

Foster carers and social workers can find these responses difficult to work with and communication can be difficult between all who care for the child. If communication has broken down between social work services and the parents, however, it is almost impossible for the parent to contribute. As services providing supports to the children, we need to consider the impact on a child when his or her parents' potential positive contribution is missing and how this may affect the child’s sense of him or herself and of belonging as he or she tries to make sense of his or her world.

While acknowledging the personal and systemic barriers for parents to engage with social work services, we also acknowledge the challenges when they do. Over all the years of direct work with parents, I am often in awe of their resilience in the face of adversity. Many parents attend meetings and family visits time and time again, regardless of how hard it is. They often describe it as like publicly losing their child all over again as they brave rooms full of people talking about their child who they no longer live with. Parents face this for their children, whom they are unable to care for, in order to attempt to repair the trust that has been broken. Such bravery and care are precious gifts to their children. For parents, foster carers and children, visits can be difficult and full of complex emotions for all involved as it is not a normal situation. Much time and energy is spent on physically organising the time, place and transport to the visit, and little focus is put on how parents and children can interact in calmer, more positive ways that acknowledge the stress involved, rather than expecting everyone to perform as if it is normal. Parents, foster carers and children need support to create and maintain meaningful family visits.

I have worked with parents and seen young people in aftercare moving through and navigating the care system. I have had the privilege of seeing what happens in the long term. I have witnessed the positive outcomes for young people when parents and foster carers are supported to work together and where the parent is accepted as part of the child’s journey. Parents have a unique contribution to make and, without this, there is a piece missing in the jigsaw of the child’s life. Our work in aftercare reinforces the value of this approach as we see young people navigate questions about their history. Even young people who have ambivalent feelings about their parents are still often concerned about their wellbeing and feel connected to them, even if contact is limited. In later teenage years they often seek to understand why they came into care and some seek to return to their parents to see if it could work. Parents and children in care have life-long, ever-evolving relationships with one another that surpass their time in the care system. Decisions made about family visits have potential long-term implications for children’s relationships with their parents, siblings and extended family.

After decades advocating for services for parents of children in care, Clarecare welcomes the support of Tusla and the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Deputy O'Gorman, for the development of a national advocacy service. It was empowering for the parents of our service to contribute to the research that informed the model. Parents can contribute to these national developments on alternative care when it is done in a respectful, creative way and their views and experiences are valued. There is a duty on services to acknowledge and support any meaningful contribution parents can make in the lives of their children. Through the hard work of dedicated Tusla social workers, foster carers, advocates and parents, we have witnessed this happening and making a difference to children’s lives. When we started the advocacy service 20 years ago, parents sought to find a way to express how they were feeling and summed it up by saying “You’re in my heart while we’re apart”. We all owe it to children in care to find ways to let them know this.

Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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I thank Ms Swann. I will open the floor to questions. Based on who is online and in the room, the speaking order will be: Senator McGreehan, Senator Seery Kearney, Deputy Sherlock, Deputy Ward, Senator Ruane, Deputy Creed and Senator Clonan. Senator McGreehan is online so I want to check if she has a question. Okay, we move on to Senator Seery Kearney.

Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael)
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I thank the Chair. I appreciate her taking me a little earlier. I thank the witnesses for their contributions. They have painted the picture very well for us of the challenges and lived experiences. That is really important. Due to the sensitivities, we cannot hear directly from people but I would have liked to facilitate that somehow.

What I have heard breaks down into two areas, the first being the experience of parents of children in care. I appreciate how that was described. I am sensitive to the stigma and judgment that goes, perhaps, with that experience. I have people close to me involved in the legal system and they describe at times difficult questioning, particularly of mothers, in situations where children are in care and there is a discussion about whether they will be restored to them, or where the children are about to be taken into care. Bizarre judgments are put in place, things like going on a visitation and the floor being sticky. A description I heard was that if you use too much Flash, your floor ends up sticky.

I am guilty of doing that in my house but, fortunately, no one is judging me for it. I would like the witnesses to elaborate on that experience for mothers. It is very difficult to be put under a spotlight when one has other challenges, including social and personal issues or poverty. It is important to talk about that.

The other question I wanted to ask was about children coming out of care and the risk of homelessness. However, I would prefer to focus on what support is available for mothers in the circumstances I outlined. I am concerned to hear that their engagement with social workers reduces and they may be left alone facing shame, failure, guilt and all of those complex feelings. Ms Swann spoke very well about this but I am sure all our guests have contributions to make.

Ms Jacinta Swann:

I thank the Senator. I come from a social work background. Parenting assessments are much more complex than just the question of whether someone has a sticky floor.

Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael)
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I appreciate that. It was just an example.

Ms Jacinta Swann:

Sometimes, however, that is what people are left with following an assessment. For some mothers - it is mostly mothers - those sentences are the ones that stay with them. In a 12-page report, those kinds of statements have an impact. Mothers, in particular, are very much left on their own. Before the child goes into care, there usually is some sort of family support service involvement. From Tusla's perspective, it often tries to put a family support package in place, as well as engagement with a social worker.

Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael)
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How frequent is that engagement? My understanding is that, often, it can be quite infrequent. How experienced are the people assessing the situation? What is their own life experience? Can Ms Swann give us any insight into that? These are issues that concern me when I wake up at night and think about them.

Ms Jacinta Swann:

All the social workers who do these assessments have a team leader who would review their reports. For parents, the turnover of social workers is the biggest issue. They build a relationship with one social worker and feel they are on solid ground and working on the issues. However, some will deal with seven or eight different people. I see the turnover of social workers within Tusla as a bigger issue than the question of their life experience. Between the training they receive, the supervision of a team leader and the sign-off systems that are in place, there certainly are checks and balances along the way. The turnover is the most significant issue for parents.

Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael)
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What causes that turnover?

Ms Jacinta Swann:

The recruitment and retention of social workers has been very difficult for Tusla. Some of that is due to the volume of cases and the type of work involved. Tusla has a retention strategy in place, which was raised at the recent meeting of this committee to discuss fostering. If the resource of a social workers is not there, the support cannot be given to the desired level.

My colleague, Ms Mockler, wants to come in on this point.

Ms Iris Mockler:

I thank Senator Seery Kearney for her question. There are no easy answers but I will share my own experience of working with parents. I agree that mothers and fathers face difficult questions and that stigma and judgment are an issue. We in Clarecare offer practical and emotional supports to parents within a very structured framework. The first meeting with someone is crucial. At that meeting, we try to manage expectations and find out where people are at and what their hopes are for the future. The practical supports we can offer include support around attending the meetings at which the difficult questions are being posed. We support parents before those meetings in respect of what their expectations are, what kinds of questions might be asked and who will be at the meeting. We go with them to the meeting and, rather than becoming their spokesperson, we try to facilitate and empower them. Following the meeting, we meet people again if any follow-up or supports are needed. I refer primarily to review meetings but there could also be access planning meetings and three-way meetings, which Ms Swann mentioned. They are really beneficial because when people have that feeling of being judged, powerless and overwhelmed, it is very useful just to sit down at a meeting with us and the social workers. People can sit down as individuals, discuss the challenges they are facing and put a plan in place.

Alongside all these meetings, we also provide emotional support. We offer a listening ear and can signpost and refer parents to services where appropriate. We also try to ascertain what supports people have in their lives, which is an aspect that should not be overlooked. Friends and family provide day-to-day supports for parents. These are the types of supports that are possible and available through our service.

Ms Marissa Ryan:

We absolutely agree that adversarial court proceedings are rarely in the best interests of the child and certainly not in the best interest of the parent. One of the points that came through in all our presentations is that the parents are going through trauma. They are grieving. They may have been the victim of extreme circumstances in the past or are so at present. It is incredibly bewildering, disenfranchising and disempowering to lose one's child and be confronted with a whole host of professionals asking questions in a situation in which one does not necessarily understand the process. As I said, people are already traumatised and grieving at that point.

While we are very happy that we finally will have a support process, we would also like to see that level of support for parents going in at a much earlier stage. Instead of waiting until a child is being taken into care and he or she is under an interim care order or similar, parents should have support earlier on and be equipped with the types of resources to which Ms Greene referred. We hope the pilot project will provide for signposting to parents of how they can get help and be assisted and get information on the processes they will go through and what is happening to their child. That will allow parents to feel much more part of the process and less disenfranchised from it. Ms Kneafsey might give an example of this from our advocacy casework.

Ms Brenda Kneafsey:

I speak on behalf of parents of social care leavers, which may not be the standard families with which social workers are meeting. In the years I have been working with care-leaver parents, I have seen they have a fear of engaging with professionals. When I first started working in Dublin, a young parent spoke to me about being fearful even of meeting with the baby nurse. I did not understand this was a reference to the public health nurse. People have a fear that if they engage with professionals, that will bring Tusla through their door and they will be observed, judged and have to put up with all the stigma we have discussed.

People can be fearful of getting involved with professionals but the problem is that they have limited supports and resources. This is one thing Tusla does recognise about care-leaver parents. They are limited in their resources and supports and that may be why the spotlight falls on them slightly more quickly than it does on the general population. As Ms Ryan said, one of the things we are seeking is that parents get support when the referrals are being put in to Tusla, at the child protection case conference level or at the prebirth case conference. Parents need the opportunity to engage with services from which they can get the social, emotional, practical and information supports they need before things hit a crisis and we have to start looking at court proceedings. That would be much more beneficial to parents. If we worked on a level of prevention of children going into care, including intergenerationally, it would be a good way to start working.

Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael)
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I have a question that is more of a comment and to which I do not expect an answer.

Once people have professionals like this in their life, do mothers in that situation - because in the main they would be mothers - assume that the presumption is against them and that they have to go into proving themselves in circumstances where they are already very vulnerable? I wonder about that and how they can be empowered in what must be a frightening and powerless experience. That is my final comment. I thank the Chair for indulging me.

Ms Brenda Kneafsey:

For our care-leaver parents there certainly is a fear of judgment because they know that Tusla already has a history of them and their care experience. They are afraid of the information that may already be held about them. That is where some of their concerns might come from.

Ms Siobhan Greene:

Adding to what everybody has said, I agree with my colleagues. In the family support services within Barnardos, which is different to this service, we do a lot of work around supporting parents whose children are at risk of coming into care. It is the very early stages, before this point where it enters the care system or even the legal system. We experience the parents who are very traumatised. Most parents of children who come into care have experienced adversity and trauma in their own lives and are very easily triggered by systems and bureaucracy and the way things are set up. One of the things we would like to see in changes to the system is for it to become more trauma informed, that is, to see the parent and consider what has happened to this parent rather than what is wrong with them, and what the system needs to do to be able to respond in a different way and in a more open way to really help to bring about change. Some of those things are about creating safety for the parent, being really clear in our expectations of what the parents need to do in order to be able to keep their children living with them, or to have the children returned home, and offering them the right support passage package to be able to do that. In Barnardos we do a lot of work around strengthening the parent-child relationship and the attachment to make sure that if the children do go into care, there would be that continued quality access. Parents of children in care are the most important people in those children's lives and will continue to be so. It is very important they have that continued relationship, even if the children are in care. We spend a lot of time doing that,and also working to strengthen the parent's capacity be able to parent and hopefully prevent the children from going into care. We need to think about that earlier piece as well as very much focusing on what the system needs to do to change once we are in that legal system. I totally appreciate the Senator's questions about trying to make that more informed. Trying to take some of the trauma-informed thinking and applying it to childcare and court system would be a good first step.

Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael)
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Ms Greene's use of language is very sensitive, and very pro the support of that parent. I really appreciate that.

Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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I have found this interaction with our witnesses very informative. I had not been conscious of the parent in all of this. I have looked matters through the prism of people who come to our constituency offices, and very often it is about a social protection query or a medical card query, but once one starts to open the box one sees that there are other issues, but one never really fully engages with the trauma or other difficulties that a parent would have in these circumstances. This meeting has been very useful for me in being more conscious about that from now on.

I will not single anybody out in particular, and not to exclude anybody else, but the Clarecare model seems to be most sympathetic and empathetic model. Is this the model that can be replicated and transposed throughout the State? I am not an expert, but if that was the model that could be used it seems to me to really to get down into the weeds of an issue. It really forms the basis of very strong relationships and understanding of people's issues. It probably pulls a lot of information out of people that heretofore they may not have felt the capacity to give. If that was to be the model, I believe it would be a very good model. I would love to have the witnesses' perspectives on that. This is not to denigrate or to undermine anybody else's potential model. I would just like to get our guests' perspectives on whether that could be the model. I believe it is a great model. That is my first question.

Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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Does Ms Swann want to come in on that?

Ms Jacinta Swann:

I thank the Deputy very much. It was very useful for us when the Children’s Rights Alliance was forming the tender that Clarecare had an opportunity to feed into that. A lot of the elements of what went out to tender had elements of the Clarecare model, which I believe is fabulous. How the Children’s Rights Alliance managed that whole research piece to shape the elements of the tender was really inclusive and highly creative. Some of our parents did not want to answer the questionnaire but they find ways of linking with us so they could still participate in it. Even with the questions that were asked, our parents had opportunities to shape those questions to make them more accessible to other parents. I see at lot of the elements of the Clarecare system within the national model, which Barnardos are heading up at the moment. It is very important. There is also a service in Limerick and Tipperary, which have been there for a lot of years. There is a lot of learning between those three services that could be used to enhance any national model. As Ms Kneafsey and Ms Greene have said, initially if we can use the learning over this pilot phase, but also the learning from the services that have been there already, then I believe it will be a better service at the end. That is very important.

It is fabulous that it has moved from just little pockets of services to discussions on national advocacy. A lot of the initiatives proposed by Barnardos, such as the information, the workshops, the help-lines and all of that, will all benefit families in Clare. We get a lot of calls from around the country also. It is fabulous that this has even moved and that we are having these conversations about parents and services for parents of children in care. I hope this has answered the Deputy's question.

Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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It does. We must understand and appreciate the service has only been operational for a matter of weeks really. It is an iterative process. I absolutely acknowledge that.

My second and final point is in relation to the courts. We have been talking about reform of the courts for donkey's years and for decades. I believe that we think too rigidly in this country about how the Courts Service operates: one must present in an adversarial fashion in a building that is very clearly identified. In my constituency of Cork East in Youghal I have seen two instances where domestic violence issues and family related issues have been consolidated into Cork city. For a lot of people that might not seem so far away but for a lot of families it is a gargantuan task to have to think about how they will engage with those services. Similarly, in my home town of Mallow the District Court will close for six months for refurbishment, which is necessary, but some of the services I have just mentioned will now be consolidated in Cork city for the duration. I do not think there is an appreciation by the Courts Service of the effect this will have on families. I do not see why one cannot build or refurbish buildings within towns throughout the country that could hold these hearings. The settings are vitally important and the representatives here have made very strong reference to that. I believe needs to be a modal shift in how we think about courts, the architecture around courts, and the nature of the buildings themselves. I welcome the representatives' interventions and their observations in that regard. I am hopeful that the current Minister, who has set out her stall with regard to domestic violence in particular, would be mindful of the need for family courts to be designed in such a way as to ensure they are conducive for families who engage with them. I thank our witnesses for their submissions here today.

Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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Does anybody wish to come in on those points?

Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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Particularly on the Courts Service.

Ms Siobhan Greene:

Barnardos would really welcome the plans for the reform of the family court. We believe they are badly needed in relation to changing the system. The environment and structure is a key part of that.

To go back to a point I made in my opening statement, the question is how to create a trauma-informed approach. A key aspect of that is making people feel safe, and the way to do that is to make sure the environment feels predictable and safe for people. The court building is a key part of that but there are many other aspects of the courts system that need to be reformed as well, including things like being less adversarial and having processes in which people can engage. There are barriers to people's engagement and we need to work together to disassemble them. The reform programme is an opportunity to do that. We welcome it and are optimistic about it.

Ms Marissa Ryan:

To add to that, EPIC went into the Courts Service in Dublin recently to have a look at the floor plans for the new Hammond Lane court. A couple of years ago we conducted research with our care-leaver parents, who are very regularly in the courts, and that consultation informed some of the review. The findings were exactly as Deputy Sherlock has said. The kinds of things they wanted were more privacy, as we alluded to in our opening statement, places where they can to talk to solicitors when they have questions they need to ask, the option of not being around other people who were very heightened or upset, and not to be exposed to criminal proceedings and so on. We have been told it will be five years before the Hammond Lane facility is built but we hope it will provide a blueprint for the type of environment we should have all over Ireland.

Along with the actual built, physical environment of the courtroom, it is very important we have judges who are trained and specialised and who are open to some of the more progressive practices we have seen recently where, for example, judges will talk directly to children in care or seek a WhatsApp voice note or a letter. That is also very important.

A whole suite of reforms is necessary but we commend the Minister for Justice, Deputy McEntee, on starting the process.

Ms Brenda Kneafsey:

I am very fortunate to have been present when judges displayed really good practice. They recognise the vulnerability of some of the parents we work with and they ensure they understand what is happening in the courtroom. It can be quite daunting for a parent who has never been in a court setting previously. There is good practice, and if that can be replicated and the environment improved, that will make what is a difficult experience better for those involved.

Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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To be fair, while one cannot say there has been a sea change, there has certainly been a shift in terms of the appointment of judges whose legal experience is grounded in family law and that is making a difference.

Lynn Ruane (Independent)
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I thank everyone for their presentations. I am glad we are having this conversation because the voice of parents has been absent up to now. Even in terms of kin placements with foster carers, their voice is absent. Kin placements are a very different experience. I have experience of this, both personally and professionally, and I know how difficult it can be.

I wish to raise a number of issues, the first of which is the importance of the relationship between foster parents and birth parents. While my observations are limited in a sense, there does not seem to be a huge amount of work or effort done in this area. Sometimes I find that, although well-meaning, some social workers are not strong enough in the work they do to navigate those difficult relationships between foster and birth parents. Sometimes they fall into a trap of wanting to keep things settled. It seems sometimes that things being settled is the bar or that settled is enough. They do not talk about the other issues like origins, identity, future and so on. Settled is some sort of standard we need to meet. It gets to me when I am having conversations or am engaged in case meetings and the word "settled" is used a lot. I do not understand it because the conversation does not move to the aspiration of the child or the future of the child, the therapeutic interventions that are needed and so on.

Do our guests believe there should be more specialised mediation between birth parents and foster families so that there is open and clear communication? Sometimes they seem to be pushed as far away from each other as possible, into silos. From my experience, there seems to be the right to a veto on the part of foster parents in relation to visitation. They will report to the social worker that the child was a bit upset or uneasy and did not sleep very well after visits. This is all stuff that should be expected and is normal for a child in those situations but it is often used as a way to introduce stricter or more limited access. This can result in supervised visitation, based on the child being unsettled even though the situation is unsettling anyway. Should there be specialised training for foster parents? Is there a place for greater recognition of the fact there must be greater mediation and an onus placed on foster parents to work better with birth parents? Obviously there will be times when that is not achievable for whatever reason, but in the main, is it desirable?

I would like to loop those two points back to a point made earlier about life experience and turnover being an issue. My concern is that in many instances there is a lack of cultural appropriateness among social workers and advocates at all different levels. Years ago when I was helping in the addiction sector in relation to visitations, I saw social workers who came from very different backgrounds and all of the training in the world could not prepare them for a very loud, boisterous community. Often I saw social workers who were uneasy in situations and I asked myself what was wrong with them. People were boisterous, shouting up the stairs, kids were running in and out, something was going on out on the street and the community itself was just a bit hectic but it was a really normal situation. That bias, concern or idea that there was some sort of threat or something wrong was being imposed by services and social workers who do not culturally understand the environment in which they are working. This is also relevant in relation to Travellers and other minority groups, including those from different countries. Culturally, we are not set up to really understand the families we are working with.

Has there been any effort made to research or understand the impact of the professions? We have come to understand, for example, that the teaching profession is overly white, middle class and rural, but the same conversation does not seem to be happening in relation to social workers who are also predominantly white and middle class. If you have a conviction, and it does not matter what that conviction is, you cannot study social work, which rules out so many amazing people from working-class communities. That must be having an impact.

This is also relevant in the context of foster parents. What are the demographics of foster parents? Obviously the kin placements are a little bit different because those foster parents are usually coming from the same familial and environmental factors and conditions, which is better, in many cases, if it can be achieved. Is there an understanding in Ireland of the impact of professions that are overly middle class and white on the outcomes for children in foster placements?

Ms Siobhan Greene:

What Senator Ruane has said resonates with what I said earlier about parents being the key adults in their children's lives. That is very important, and regardless of whether children stay in care until they are 18, their parents will still be the key adults in their lives. Invariably, research tells us children return home to live in the family environment so we have to find ways to continue that attachment and relationship. I agree that where birth parents - although I do not like that term - are actively involved in foster care experiences, invariably they are more successful.

There is a variety of reasons that does not happen. I do not know enough about the foster care system and another colleagues might talk to that better than I would but we need to be really clear with foster carers around expectations of access and the importance of that. Maybe the importance of maintaining that relationship is misunderstood and why it is an important thing to do. Rather than seeing that a child might be unsettled because of a visit, trying to explore what that is about and helping to get some healing around that in a different kind of way would probably a good thing.

Around the cultural sensitivity point, I think the Senator is absolutely right. We have a huge journey to go on in Ireland regarding that. We are invariably - at least in my organisation - white females, and that is something we are thinking about even within Barnardos. We are looking at our profile of service users and how we change that. I do not think that is unique to foster carers or social workers. We are in a changing Ireland and we need to think about how that applies. I say that generally but Ms McCarthy may want to say something specific.

Ms Niamh McCarthy:

I wanted to build on that point on the role of the parent as one of the key stakeholders. The role of the advocate is important here because I see the advocate's job as encouraging that parent, seeing him or her as a key stakeholder and as an equal stakeholder at meetings, having a voice, and being empowered to really speak about how he or she feels even if his or her child is not within his or her care and reunification is not a plan. The advocate can also work with Tusla, the foster parent and the parent to have individualised plans that look from a holistic point of view. The child may be unregulated, which is completely normal and an attachment response, but it is a question of how we regulate parents going into those sessions as well and how we prepare them for the sense of loss that people talk about; the sense of isolation; and leaving those things. The role of the advocate is so strong in preparing parents for all those experiences and viewing them in a different light in the fostering relationship as well, in that they are having an important and valued input in their child's life.

In terms of the diversity piece, we totally agree. We are all on a journey and we do not know what we do not know yet. There are things we could be advocating for at this moment that may never have even crossed our minds such as AkiDwA recently advocating for cultural mediators within proceedings to help understand what is happening from different cultural points of view. That can then inform how things are assessed in a more well-rounded, holistic way. I welcome some of the recommendations. Organisations from different cultures are recommending listening to their experiences and we need to look at how we can learn from that as well.

Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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I see Ms Mockler is looking to come in so I will bring her in next.

Ms Iris Mockler:

I would like to make the point about family visits and how difficult, and challenging at times, they are for parents. The family's world has been turned upside down and it really important to then offer appropriate and relevant supports; both to the parents and to everybody involved. At Clarecare we are looking at a piece of work with Aoife Bairéad who I know was a witness recently regarding foster care. We are looking at putting a framework in place where all the stakeholders, including the parent, are involved and around that table and have an opportunity to look at the strengths and the challenges involved in their individual visit. The Senator is right in the sense that sometimes things can be taken for granted and the assumption made that it is grand, everybody is settled. However in every family and in every family dynamic there always will be strengths and challenges and it is important to acknowledge those and to work from the strengths to build a visit that is a positive experience for all and one which is working towards the long-term relationship between the parent and the child. When I talk about participation, the foster carers then would also be involved; along with the access worker, the social worker and the advocacy worker. All parties, and the child as well where appropriate, are involved in building a plan together to make visits as rewarding as possible.

That is one idea that came to mind when the parents and visits were mentioned, involving foster carers and building on the relationship between the parent and the foster carers. There are different opportunities in all these different processes and how it can be done and to do it in such a way that there is focus and an aim. Ultimately, the focus and the aim is that the wellbeing of the child is to the forefront; including their relationship with their parent. I thank the Senator for that question.

Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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Was Ms Swann looking to come in?

Ms Jacinta Swann:

Ms Mockler said a lot of what I was going to say. We have done a lot of work recently with the Irish Foster Care Association, IFCA, and some foster parents and they also mention how they struggle with the visits, what the best way is to manage them and the support they need as well. Particularly during Covid-19, many of the social workers were trying very hard, as were the foster parents and the parents, to keep contact going all of the time but actually nobody knew what to say after saying hello. The foster parents did not know how to manage it and neither did the social worker or the parents. Each party involved in the children-in-care process might acknowledge that this is actually complicated, as expecting everybody to know what to do is too high a bar. We need to be honest about it and acknowledge it is not a normal situation to expect visits, for children to be in reviews. Foster carers, social workers and everybody is all stressed in it and it is not an optimum space. For me, there is something about actually acknowledging we all need to look at it again, that this is not normal and then work out how to do it in the best way we can to make it the best for the child. We can only do that by acknowledging what we do not know and what supports we need to use. This is a bit like the potential model with Aoife Bairéad and considering if that is the way we are looking at understanding the child and what we are trying to achieve in providing access. The Covid-19 experience and that technology booklet made real progress in trying to see what we did not know and how we were going to work it out together to actually make this better.

I thank the Senator for the question. Like the other questions she asked, including the one around fostering, these are the key questions we need to look at as an alternative care sector.

Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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Do Ms Ryan or Ms Kneafsey want to come in?

Ms Marissa Ryan:

Due to the fact that we only work with children and young people who have left care including those who have become parents up to 26 years old, we do not work directly with foster carers so I do not have anything to add to what my colleague has said.

On the diversity question, I agree absolutely. The AkiDwA ideas were very good and necessary and there is a lot that can be done in that space. In EPIC, we are also looking at how we recruit, how we make it very clear that we want our organisation - it is part of our new strategic plan actually - to reflect a modern Ireland. It might be a question that would be really interesting to discuss with the Irish Association of Social Workers as well because I am sure it is advancing thinking on how its members can diversify its own profession as well. Tusla has done a good job in this year's fostering campaign in openly staying that it wants dedicated foster carers for, and from, Travelling communities. There was also a lot of focus on LGBTI parents. That is really positive recognition but we have so much further to go. Committee members should definitely keep asking the questions and I hope there will be more robust discussion on this topic.

Ms Brenda Kneafsey:

To mirror what Ms Ryan has said, there is absolutely a need for more diversity. On a positive note, in my role as an advocate when I am out and about, I am meeting more social workers and social care staff who actually have care experience. They bring with them that knowledge and experience and it is great to see that coming through and that young people feel they have a right to be in that space, to work in that space and to speak for young people and families with whom they work.

Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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Does the Senator want to add anything?

Lynn Ruane (Independent)
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No, as I could be here all day, I am going to just say no.

Mark Ward (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the witnesses for this interesting and informative discussion. It gives a balance in the context of previous discussions the committee has had about foster carers. It is interesting and important to hear the perspective of the parents of children in foster care and the challenges they face. I thank the witnesses for that and I thank other members of the committee for their contributions.

In my previous role as an addiction worker and key worker in Dublin, I had one of the toughest few weeks of my professional life at the time when, in the space of two weeks, three 18-year-old women arrived at our services. All three had left the care system, all three had children in care and all three had children removed from them while they were in care. All three also had some form of substance misuse issues. Of course, substance misuse could also have been the only coping mechanism available to them. That is a debate for another day. As one of the witnesses outlined, the State failed these women when it was acting in loco parentis. I was at a loss as to how to deal with them. I did not know where to turn, so I contacted EPIC. The support and advice I received from EPIC was invaluable to me and to those three women. I thank EPIC for that. If I found the experience traumatic, which I did, I can only imagine the trauma - it pales into insignificance - experienced by the three women who arrived at the service for which I was working at the time. It was horrendous. They were lost.

Reference was made to a particular initiative. I want to tease this out with all the witnesses. I refer to care-leaver parents and their children being cared for together. That is a really good initiative. The witnesses stated that they have seen examples of vulnerable care leavers and newborn being put in a foster-type placement together. This is a welcome initiative. If it had been in place when the three young women I mentioned arrived at the doorstep of the service I was working for, it could have helped them. Will the witnesses indicate how often this takes place? How is it working? Can this model be rolled out nationally? Any initiative that keeps a mother and child together has to be explored. We have a dark history of separating mothers from babies. Anything we can do to keep mothers and children together needs to be explored. I would like to hear the witnesses' input on that.

Ms Brenda Kneafsey:

I have been working in advocacy for over 15 years but this is the first time I have come across a situation where a parent and child are put in a foster placement together. One of the things that struck me about it was that, initially, the option of a placement in another service like Bessborough or somewhere similar that would be suitable was explored. However, this was not deemed suitable. What happens is they assess the position of a parent with a child being put in a foster placement. This provides the benefit of the best interests of the child who needs to be cared for, but it also allows the parent the opportunity to be with their child. I am always conscious of what might happen next if anything goes wrong with a placement. It is the innovation of trying something to keep the two together that matters. A key part of this is mom's willingness to participate in that situation, because the placement is not with a relative, it is with a stranger. The mother's willingness is commendable in this situation, in that she is willing to go into an arrangement where her child is voluntarily in care and she is living with them.

In the context of replicating the initiative, we are struggling to get enough foster carers. It would be lovely to see this built upon, but given the demands we already have on foster care, it would need to be piloted across the country in order to see its effectiveness and assess whether it could be rolled out. In this situation, it is an innovation rather than the norm. For moms who recognise that there is an issue and are looking at how to address it, the initiative may work. It may not work for parents who do not see that there is an issue or who are struggling with their relationship with Tusla. For those, it could be more difficult. An opportunity for it to happen across the country would be good. All of these things tend to happen in small pockets, so you only hear about them in dribs and drabs, unfortunately.

Ms Niamh McCarthy:

Our service is still in its infancy; it is only a few weeks old. This is not something we have come across yet, but we have come across a young parent who was offered the opportunity of entering residential care with their child. Ms Kneafsey's point is important, namely, that there are pockets of innovation. It is not a fostering campaign that is happening at the moment; it is an individualised response to certain needs. We also sees pockets of innovation in diversity. There are individualised responses depending on where one lives or what social work department one is linked with. It is also something we may be mindful of in the research element of our service. We are hope to influence systemic change and capture those pockets of innovation that could then possibly be replicated throughout the country or that at least could be recommended.

Ms Siobhan Greene:

I agree with my colleagues about that being a potential model for replication. What is important is that it would be a model that would empower parents. The roles of foster parent and the parent would have to be clearly worked out and that it would empower the parent to parent effectively. It would require thinking to make it effective, rather than just being a case of getting foster carers. It is possible, but it deserves proper thought in order to make sure that it is an empowering experience for parents.

Ms Jacinta Swann:

What I have to say would be somewhat similar to what Ms Greene said. There have been a number of examples in County Clare and the mid-west that have worked well. A number of questions arise. For example, what will the contract be between everybody? What are the expectations? Those need to be clear. However, the initiative has given young people a chance to mind their children and learn how to do that. There have been positive outcomes where it has happened. It is dependent on the relationship between the foster carer and the young person, and how they navigate and negotiate that. There would need to be a clear model in the context of how everybody would be supported, on the expectations and the boundaries, such as which responsibilities are the young mom's and which are the foster carer's and how that links with the wider support network, for example, can they go to mother and toddler groups and other supports in the community that young people could be linked with as well. It would be fabulous if it could be replicated; it needs to be supported and there needs to be specific training provided. It would certainly give young people a greater chance to care for their babies long term.

Mark Ward (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Reference was made to the individual response; my concern is that it could be lost. Ms McCarthy mentioned research. Evidenced-based research is going to be invaluable in making the systemic changes that were mentioned. Has there been collaboration between the witnesses or other agencies as regards collecting that data and evidence in order that we can prove that this new model could make the systemic changes we have been asking for?

Ms Niamh McCarthy:

We are developing the research methodology for this service. We are hoping to have parental consultation throughout. This will start at this stage, that is, in the context of service design, and will look at the experience over the five years and making sure that is a key element. We are not working with all the key stakeholders, including EPIC, Clarecare, addiction services, Tusla and the Legal Aid Board, that parents come across when navigating the care system in the context of childcare proceedings.

It is important that we capture the experiences, the demographics, the backgrounds and the different stages of the process. Obviously, there are three different sites, in north Dublin city, Waterford and Wexford. We must look at the similarities and differences, the key teams and stakeholders and their experiences. We must also look at the effect of having an advocate on board, and how that impacts on the childcare proceedings and the relationship between the parent and other key stakeholders.

Ms Siobhan Greene:

It also really important for us to capture what the service cannot do and the needs it cannot meet. It is an advocacy and information service for the parents of children in care. There is probably a whole other service to provide specialist therapeutic supports for parents of children in care that is badly needed, but which we are not here to talk about today. We are also hoping to capture some of what we are not able to do in the research, to try to advocate for those needs to be met.

Mark Ward (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I spoke about foster carers previously. I take my hat off to them for the invaluable work they do. However, this initiative relates to a different type of foster care. It is hugely challenging for a carer to care for a parent and a child, to find their role in that and where the boundaries are, and to know when to intervene and how to help. As part of the research that is being undertaken, will there be research on how best to train foster carers or give them ways to be able to do this better? It is really bespoke to do something like this. Anybody who is willing to help a parent and a child in this situation is invaluable to us. Any training or support that we can give in this situation, even if it is bespoke, should be looked at. I wonder if that is part of the research.

Ms Siobhan Greene:

The research we are talking about is research on the new parental advocacy and information service. There are so many needs and issues in relation to parents of children in care that we could do research that would be endless. The research we are talking about focuses very much on parents of children in care and the advocacy and information service. If the issue raised by the Deputy is highlighted as a frequent issue, it will be captured in the research, but I just do not know how many of those parents we will come across yet. As we have said, we are at a very early stage of the research. I do not know if colleagues have a sense of whether it is a really prominent issue that is likely to be included in the research. At this stage, we do not know. As Ms McCarthy has said, we will be gathering information on the profile of parents, their needs, how the system is meeting their needs and some of the system changes that are needed. If it is an issue that is coming up frequently, it will certainly be captured in that regard.

Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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I do not think Deputy Creed is online, so we will move on to Senator Clonan.

Tom Clonan (Independent)
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I thank the witnesses for their presentations; they were really interesting. Some great points were made by colleagues. I wish to reference Senator Ruane's observations about teaching. I went to school in Finglas, and I cannot recall any of the teachers being from the area. My parents did not hit me, but some of my teachers did, which is extraordinary. I explained it to my 18-year-old daughter and she told me it was criminal. When I look back on it, it was a kind of a criminal enterprise. I know that teaching has moved on since then. When I was 20, I qualified as a primary school teacher and I did interviews all over Dublin in 1987. I remember the chairperson of one of the boards of management, who was a priest, telling me that he had his doubts about me because I had one foot in primary teaching and the other foot in Finglas. There was even an in-built scepticism then. In speaking to Senator Ruane's point, I have just come from the Techonolgical University Dublin, where there is a school of social care. I am on the panel at Trinity College and I know that the students in the school of social work are from very diverse backgrounds. I am sure the witnesses know that more than I do. There are grounds for optimism there.

My question is on an area that I am not really au faitwith, but it reminds me of the disability space, which I am familiar with. The witnesses described the churn of social workers in Tusla and elsewhere. Is the cause of that turnover of staff the same as the reason the HSE cannot keep speech and language therapists, occupational therapists and physiotherapists, namely, because there are difficult working conditions with a very small resource and huge demand?I imagine it is probably the same for social workers in Tusla and elsewhere.

Leading into the next question, I congratulate the witnesses on the roll-out of the service, which is trauma-informed. Many of the parents whose children have been taken into care have been traumatised and harmed themselves. There are 3,500 children who are homeless this Christmas. The State and its institutions have a very poor record in terms of how they treat children. The parents whose children are taken from them and put into care are a symptom of the overall system that we have in Ireland. We really do fail in our duty of care to children, people with disabilities and anybody who is vulnerable in this State. It is a cold house for people who are vulnerable, whether they are elderly, on a trolley, homeless or children. It is really tough. On the service that is being rolled out, do the witnesses know whether similar services in other jurisdictions are provided by charities or by the State themselves? Is there a country, either in the EU or internationally, that serves as a model that fits with what the witnesses' understanding of what best practice ought to be or could be?

Ms Niamh McCarthy:

We are very much at the stage of service design, so we are reviewing all best practice in other countries. We have come across certain models, particularly those used in Wales and Scotland, that are quite progressive. They face similar issues. The Welsh model for parents of children in care has only been in place for two years, but it has been subject to quite an extensive review. The national advocacy service there is not State-run, it is run by a voluntary body. It is the same in Scotland. In England, there is a more peer-led advocacy model, rather than advocates being emloyed from different charitable or voluntary organisations. That model has many pros and cons to it as well.

To answer the Senator's question, in Scotland and Wales the models seem to be working really well. They have had really positive outcomes and have received positive feedback from the parents using the services. They have been able to reduce adversity within the systems, and they are starting to influence systemic change, which is all really positive. In England, the peer-led model is really supportive. It creates learning and participation in terms of voices being heard clearly. We are in the infancy of this process, and those are the models that we have looked at so far. There is also an Australian model. I can see Ms Swann gesturing; she can probably speak to it as well. It is a strong model of practice that is evidence-based.

Ms Siobhan Greene:

We mentioned, at the beginning, that the Children's Rights Alliance listened to parents when they were thinking about tendering for the service. I know that there were parents in Clarecare and EPIC who participated in that. One of the things that came through really strongly was the need for the independence of the service from the State, so that it would not be a Tusla-provided service. The parents wanted it to be independent. That is why the Children's Rights Alliance tendered for the service rather than Tusla, and why the Children's Rights Alliance has set up a project oversight group made up of independent experts in the area to oversee the service. We report to that, rather than Tusla, which is unusual when Tusla funds the service. It is to meet the requirement that parents specifically asked for in respect of it being an independent service.

Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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Does Ms Swann want to comment?

Ms Jacinta Swann:

Everything has been said.

Tom Clonan (Independent)
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I thank the witnesses for all their hard work. Do they have a view on why we cannot keep social workers in the sector and why they are all moving on? Is it because of the housing and accommodation challenges in our urban centres? Are they all going to Australia, where that lovely service is being provided?

Ms Marissa Ryan:

The CEO of Tusla has been briefing the Committee of Public Accounts and some other Oireachtas committees on this situation. Our view is in line with that of Tusla. There are a number of challenges. Some social workers are burning out because it is extremely difficult and gruelling work. Simultaneously, there have been problems with recruitment. Not enough young people are studying social work. On top of that, social work is becoming a profession that has gone beyond the Child and Family Agency. It is vying for social workers alongside not just the HSE, but many other public and private bodies. All of that together is placing big pressure on the system.

We have seen some really positive practice. Just last year, Tusla offered every newly graduating social work student a place in Tusla. That increased the numbers, but I believe the last statistics I read indicated that about 7% of children do not have an allocated social worker at the moment. I will need to check that. If there are not enough social workers, Tusla has identified the need to bring in other experts who can help to alleviate some of the pressures on the system. We in EPIC would say that we are one of those. Independent advocacy services can resolve some issues that children in care face in the absence of a social worker or until the social worker is in place. As we have an ex-social worker here today, the Senator could also ask him.

Tom Clonan (Independent)
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I know I put Ms Ryan on the spot there. I thank her and her colleagues. They are working in a very difficult space. I mentioned that I was a primary school teacher. I did that for two years and I feel as though I have been having a break ever since. Being in the Army was like a holiday. I appreciate the time they have taken to come here. I really appreciate the work they are doing in very difficult circumstances.

Ms Iris Mockler:

Ms Ryan spoke to what I was going to say. The examples I was going to give are anecdotal. I wish to make a point about the negative impact the changeover in staff can have on parents and children. With the changeover, they need to retell their story. The Senator mentioned trauma and the duty of care. It can be retraumatising for someone to have to continually repeat their story. They may feel they need to prove themselves all over again. They are definitely trying to rebuild relationships and make that connection with the social worker. It is additional work for everybody involved and unfortunately it can also retraumatise people. My colleague, Eleanor Comber, and I were recently invited to speak to social work master's students in the University of Galway. That was a really diverse group which was fantastic to see. I hope that things are changing slowly and with them the system will change itself by the nature of the people employed within it.

Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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I thank all the witnesses for attending. Most of my questions about social workers and parents have been answered. In recent weeks, I met a group of foster parents. They raised some challenges in the system. In 2001, the working group on foster care recommended that the fostering allowance should be increased annually in line with social welfare payment increases. This was meant to have happened, but there has been no increase since 2009. Where do we need to call for extra supports? Would the provision of mileage support and allowance to foster parents, especially a further back-to-school allowance for children in care be beneficial?

As we know, foster carers provide an invaluable contribution to the State because they want to bring positive change to the life of a child. That issue came across very strongly in my meeting with them. One lady I spoke to has a child with a disability. She was a full-time foster carer. She had given up a job to do so. She cannot claim PRSI credits because of how the system is. Should foster carers be able to claim some kind of contributory pension?

We know there are many challenges in the alternative care system at the moment. One of the reasons for this is the lack of foster families. Why is there such a struggle to find them? The families told me of the difficulty in trying to get speech and language therapy or access to a special class. There are so many issues. If we do not have foster families, organisation will not exist. Where do the witnesses see the challenges? How can we work with the foster parents, social workers and Tusla? It needs everybody working together. At the end of the day this is about children. We have a duty of care to all children to ensure they get every support they need. I would like to get feedback on that.

As I said, many of my other questions were already asked. The organisations represented here today play a very valuable role and they are really needed. I know that the love that foster parents have for their children is really important. We need everybody working together to try to ensure that we have these services for children.

Ms Siobhan Greene:

Any changes to the system that would help to stabilise the care system would be worth considering. I am no expert and cannot answer specifically about rates of pay and stuff like that and so I will not answer that aspect of the Deputy's questions. It is really important that all aspects are resourced. Just as foster carers need resourcing, the reunification for parents also needs to be resourced. Regardless of the care plan and where children are going to live, the system must resource that adequately.

Regarding the Deputy's a point about therapeutic interventions, both children in care and the parents of children in care should be prioritised for therapeutic interventions. They are in the care of the State and potentially going home to parents. If parents need therapeutic intervention for addiction services - we have talked about that today - or mental health, they should be prioritised for that. Likewise, so should children in the care of the State. They should bump straight to the top of the list for whatever therapeutic intervention they need.

Ms Marissa Ryan:

Ms Greene put it very succinctly and I really do not have anything to add. EPIC's pre-budget submission proposed that the fostering allowance should have been raised in the last budget. We continue to support that. We all accept that foster carers are the backbone of our child protection and welfare system. It does not mean that they should be resourced more or less than the other parts of the alternative care system, as Ms Greene said. They should be entitled to anything they need to provide safe and loving homes for children in care. As the Deputy said, it is all about children. They should be in receipt of the absolute best financially but also in the service supports they require to continue to support children in care.

Ms Brenda Kneafsey:

In advocating for children in care, we work in supporting foster families and Tusla to get the required supports under the joint working protocol. We work in advocating for children so they can access support. Many of those supports come through the HSE system. There are many waiting lists and considerable movement of people in those systems. I know they are bringing more people online and the structures have changed. Under the joint working protocol, we advocate for young people in care to access the supports they need.

Ms Jacinta Swann:

Much of it has been said. Our experience is that foster parents are vital to the care of the child but also the support of the parent. When it is working really well, they are also supporting the parent to be the best parent they can be. They need to be supported in whatever way they can. At the meeting the committee had on fostering, it was suggested that there should be an alternative care review to look at all the parts and how those parts can work better together with a shared goal. That would be really important. If we are not working together, it is not working for the child. That is our experience.

Patrick Costello (Dublin South Central, Green Party)
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I apologise to the witnesses. Every Tuesday, I need to perform an act of bilocation between this committee and the Joint Committee on Justice. I find myself either missing one meeting or running between the two.

Social workers are suffering needless burnout. This is partly because there are not enough of them and the pressures on the system make the job harder. This contributes to quicker burnout. One of the things that can contribute to burnout but can also be a positive and a preventative to burnout, is the purpose of the job. Social work is in many ways a vocation and can be a very rewarding and meaningful career. However, there are many times when a person is butting heads with poor structures and poor resources and it becomes utterly draining. The lack of supports for parents once their children are in care is a major area of frustration for social workers. I have experience as a social worker of trying to support parents and being told to focus on the child in care and that there was no time to focus on the parents. Previously, you might have been trying to support the two of them to prevent the child being taken into care in the first place. In cases where reunification has been ruled out, perhaps prematurely because the supports were not put in place, there is even more pressure not to help the parents. That ultimately has a knock on effect on the children, particularly in the continuing relationship with the parents.

I apologise if some of this has been mentioned before and I appreciate that the witnesses are the experts who deal with this every day. Certainly for me, when I reflect on it, it was a very adhoc thing. Sometimes it would work very well in some areas or with a particular principal social worker. In others, the principal social worker was the roadblock. There might be a trained person who wanted to do grief or trauma counselling with parents and was being told he or she could not do that. Grief counselling is essential for making access work. Access and continuing contact is essential to make reunification work.

I want to talk about these structural impediments. In her opening statement, Ms Swann mentioned the engagement with parents. Are there plans for ongoing engagement? Tusla has spent time trying to build up youth engagement and youth councils with the support of independent advocates. Is there a similar structure mirrored with the parents? How should Tusla be doing that? Are there places where Tusla structures or policies are roadblocks in relation to this kind of work? It would be very useful to highlight them for the committee in order that we could follow up with that agency in our own engagements. One thing that comes to mind is access and contact with parents. One last question, which may be outside the remit of the committee but which is important in terms of supporting parents, is about adequate access to justice when parents are in the court process. Is there sufficient legal aid and are there sufficient supports within the Courts Service? Some parents have told me that they did not even have a lawyer in the court. Usually in my experience, judges are very good at ensuring that parents have an advocate, at least in the judicial phase, but in court it is not just necessarily about having an advocate.

Ms Swann should respond first because her organisation was engaging with the parents.

Ms Jacinta Swann:

Tusla has led an interesting initiative in the mid-west, which looked at the experience of access. Two of the parents were on the steering group along with the advocacy services and Tusla staff. It was really interesting to get the perspectives of both the parents and the social workers. Hopefully that will be launched before the end of the year. There will be an information booklet, a video of the parents voicing their experiences and a piece of research looking at parental participation. Hopefully that kind of initiative will expand. An issue that Tusla has identified is that there are very few spaces where Tusla or the academics can meet the parents unless there is an advocacy service or a link with another service. This came up in relation to research by University College Cork, UCC, into voluntary care. More national advocacy services will mean more opportunities for parental engagement.

One of the roadblocks is the under-resourcing of social workers. In terms of aftercare, the emphasis is on meeting the statutory requirements. In County Clare, the children in care team see the need and would like to be involved in aftercare but it is very hard to balance that with the need to meet statutory requirements. A large part of the HIQA audits is about the statutory requirements. An overall approach and a vision of how to approach this in a systemic way is needed. They are roadblocks in that it is under-resourced and the focus is on the statutory requirements, as it must be, so the question is where do the other bits happen.

Ms Iris Mockler:

I will speak about the ongoing engagement in terms of the day-to-day work at the micro level. It is very important for parents to feel heard, respected and included in the process. It is important to have a very clear roadmap around what the parents' role is within the process and the care plan for their child. The acknowledgement of any positive changes that they make is important. In fairness to the local social workers here, they do respond. They look for three-way meetings where parents are heard and respected and have an opportunity to engage in a way that they feel heard, their role is valued and they have a participatory role in their child's life and development. It is very important for the parents that they are part of the process and that Tusla engages with them.

In terms of roadblocks around visits, something that came to mind in terms of the under-resourcing goes back to what Senator Ruane mentioned about the idea of settling. Sometimes an agreement is made in the early days of a full care order whereby it is agreed that a parent will see a child perhaps four times a year, an hour or two at a time. That plan is then taken as a given and is not reviewed again. It is a pity that there is not more time or resources to be able to review that. People and families change and those things could be reviewed on a more ongoing basis with that support. Perhaps that is the resources piece. We are afraid to review because then it is going to require more resources, particularly if access is supervised, because the access worker needs to be there. That is the reality of it, unfortunately.

In terms of justice and legal aid, in my experience of parents they generally do get it and we support them in linking with legal aid. Judges are very supportive of that. They generally do not want parents in court unrepresented. Unfortunately, I am aware of circumstances where people are working but they are just above the threshold. It is really unfortunate then that sometimes they have to go and pay a solicitor themselves, which can be prohibitive and can lead to debt.

Ms Brenda Kneafsey:

In terms of engagement with parents, the one thing I look for is engagement at the earliest opportunity. EPIC advocates become involved at different points, but earlier is better in terms of support for the parent when they are trying to navigate the child protection system. We have become involved in some cases at the child protection case conference level. For some parents, it can be very difficult for them to say they do not fully understand the reasons this meeting is being called or the level of professionals who are there. Those kinds of meetings can be quite daunting for a parent. However, the ones where I have seen the most success are those where the parents had opportunities to speak with the independent chair and understand how the case conference would be conducted; when there would be an opportunity to speak; who else would have an opportunity; and what happens at the decision making stage. That opportunity for the parent to speak to the chair can be make or break in respect of how the situation develops with social workers. It is where they feel they have the opportunity to be heard and have their views taken seriously. It reflects that acknowledgement of their rights, and respect and dignity for the parents. They tend to open up to that.

In terms of the road blocks for Tusla, one of the issues we see as advocates is accessing proper supports for parents or the required assessments. There are a variety of different assessments that can be used such as parental capacity assessments and reattachment assessments. We are not given reasons they go for one or the other. Getting finance for them can be a struggle within Tusla itself.

On legal aid, I find the courts are very particular in that they like parents to have legal aid or solicitor support at court. The court experience is very daunting from the day of the emergency care order and then through the consistent interim care orders. That system can be a little difficult for parents in that they are potentially coming back every 28 days with set goals and targets, assessments to be completed and meetings to be attended. There are lots of tasks to be completed by a parent or social worker. Yet it is very hard to get those things done within 28 days. When I first started, childcare cases could take between six and nine months, but now it could take anywhere between three and five years for a case to reach full care hearing stage. The system itself has become its own road block.

Within the court space, I find judges have certainly improved over the years, but the environment in the court room can be a real struggle for parents, as is the availability of space for parents to speak with solicitors and feel they have some level of privacy and confidentiality to go through reports. It is very difficult for them, and yet in some areas I have seen legal aid teams who are very progressive and want to see clients a day or two before court to go through the reports. They are putting pressure on. Tusla would have the reports in and will sit down with parents. You see a variety of different processes around the country. I hope that answers the questions.

Ms Siobhan Greene:

I agree with what has been said. As Ms Swann said, it is really important to take a systems approach to how it all interacts, because maybe that is what is wrong. The system is not working effectively in all of the parts coming together. There are definitely road blocks or barriers, whatever term we want to use, in terms of the system supporting the active participation of parents in these processes. Much has been mentioned, and even in the early stages we are seeing things like financial issues. Reunification is being planned and families are not able to afford it. That is a simple barrier. Another example would be a parent so stressed that their behaviour means they are excluded from the process. The system is unable to realise that it needs to be able to engage that parent, realise why they are stressed and respond effectively. Some of the general barriers we see to access, contact and quality in Barnardos is that parents talk an awful lot about the stress that contact brings on them. This can be in terms of the money to get there, or that the place where access is held is not accessible when they get there. They also do not know what to do when they are there. I think that has been touched on by other colleagues today. We have a lot to do in terms of supporting parents and children, and make access a positive place that can help nurture that parent and child relationship.

Patrick Costello (Dublin South Central, Green Party)
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Is that not the role of the access worker?

Ms Siobhan Greene:

It is the role of the access worker and others. Everybody involved in the child's and parent's life has a role in making sure the parent is prepared in advance to know what is happening. Even before the access is happening, it is about making sure the parent knows how to get there, has the money to get there, knows who is going to be in the room, and what they can do. It is about preparing them in advance and not just on the day of the access. If children are in care, it means the foster parent or social worker preparing the children. Everybody involved in the child's life needs to work together and make that effective.

Patrick Costello (Dublin South Central, Green Party)
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If we need to expand the role and give the time and reduce the case load of access workers, are we going to have the same recruitment issues there?

Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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I have a couple of questions. On the pilot programme in Barnardos, although maybe this is more a question for the Department, are the witnesses aware if it is hoped to roll it out further? Is it just Dublin, Wexford and Waterford? I have a feeling they might be inundated even after people listen today. There really was a gap in the system. I find, as I am sure do other members, that people are coming to us. I am always very conscious that they might be in a difficult situation, but for me the primary focus is what is in the best interest of the child. Very often people will not like what you have to say about that. They are difficult situations you are dealing with. It is very hard to know where to point parents apart from the legal road. We all know the complications with that and the cost. Sometimes people are told they are not eligible for legal aid or they do not require a solicitor. There are all sorts of barriers. Parents' advocacy is great, but I also have an element of sympathy for the witnesses because I think there are going to be so many queries. From their own point view, I imagine they would like to see it rolled out more, with more support staff and resources. I would like them to say a bit more on that.

I have another question that maybe nobody has an answer to. In some of the cases I have come across, I find that once a child goes into care, there is seldom reunification. I have never seen a situation in all my years as a Deputy and as a councillor where there has been reunification. I think that is where the grief element is coming from. Nobody is saying it but everybody knows that it seldom happens. I am wondering if there are any statistics around reunification that could be sent on, even if they are not available today. I know when kids get older and reach their later teenage years or the age of 18, they might choose themselves. Is it very common in general?

Ms Niamh McCarthy:

We are in the infancy of this and it is only five weeks in operation. Three of our advocate cases are at reunification stage, which is really positive. It is also positive that an advocate is there to support follow-through of the reunification plan and see what barriers may be in place or that may derail the reunification plan. That may be something very simple, as Ms Greene said earlier, such as not having financial support to fund children's lunches, or to adequately care for children as they are returning to the family home. For all that, it is very positive that even at this stage we are seeing three cases at reunification. I also want to echo what Ms Kneafsey said. We are also being asked to go in in terms of child protection conferences and supervision orders. There are different stages around the care journey but for me it is very positive at this stage that we have three cases.

Ms Siobhan Greene:

I do not know the statistics on reunification, but we could certainly get those. Another colleague in the room might know those statistics, but I am afraid I do not. Regarding the roll out of the national service, the plan is that this is a five-year pilot, so it is funded for five years. During that period of time, we will roll it out and evaluate it in those three areas to see how effective it is with a view to national roll-out beyond that.

That is the kind of anticipated plan. Whether or not that is with Barnardos is up for discussion in the future but we will be involved for the first five years in developing the service and setting it up. I agree that we are worried about the level of demand we will experience. We are hoping the information advice service will be able to offer it on a general level to many more parents but in terms of those who need that high level of advocacy, we are wondering how we will meet that level of demand and are unsure what that will look like. Gathering that picture of the level of demand even through the service will be helpful in terms of plans for a national roll-out. That is the plan at the moment.

Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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As part of that, it would be good to keep this committee informed because part of our job should be - I am trying to think of the politically correct word here - "advocating", which I suppose is the best word to use, for more resources. It is like the old phrase that, to a certain extent, prevention is better than cure. I know that when people are dealing with the witnesses, the kids already in care but it is still potentially an initial stage and it might be in those first stages where parents can be captured better. I would imagine this service is really going to be beneficial for so many parents and is a good thing. Definitely, every member of this committee would be interested, not just in how the work is progressing, but in hearing about anything we can do as a committee to push for more supports.

Ms Marissa Ryan:

Just to add briefly to that, I was struck by what Deputy Sherlock said, which was that he had not conceived of parents of children in care as a group. That is the way it is in Ireland. Children in care are also an under-represented group. While our current support service is so welcome and is a great step forward, when the young care leaver parents were consulted, the majority of services they wanted were around court proceedings but it was very evident to us and to them that they needed many other supports as well. While support around court proceedings is vital for them when their children are taken into care or become subject to discussion on being taken into care, there is also a huge unmet need there around mental health, and all of the other areas. It is that inter-agency collaboration that is important, so that it is not just our organisations, Tusla or the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth taking an interest in this group, but also the Departments responsible for justice, health, and social protection coming together and realising this is a priority cohort. Nobody wants to see parents in a situation where their children are being taken into care. We have to get in as early as we can to support people and to protect the parent and to protect the child and have their rights realised. It is not always possible, of course, but we could all be doing more and we have all have been saying that today. I really recommend that this pilot is something the committee continues to monitor, take the learning from and look at and advocate for as the Chair said. I thank her for that.

Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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I think Ms Ryan is dead right. In terms of where family support goes in and works, I am sure we can all think of loads of examples where we have seen that work really well and where we think it is such a shame it did not happen in other cases where it would have been helpful. It is definitely good and I wish Barnardos all the best with it. As a committee, we will definitely do our very best to support that work as well because it is in the interests of children.

Are there any other questions? Ms Mockler was looking to come in.

Ms Iris Mockler:

I want to take this opportunity to echo what Ms Ryan said about everybody working together. For the parents I have spoken to and informed that this meeting was happening, I want to just acknowledge how much it means to them. Oftentimes they feel very alienated and forgotten about. Meetings like this one mean that people are talking about their situations, considering what it must be like and looking at the options and supports that could best meet their needs and support them in being the best parents they possibly can be and to maintain that relationship with their child. I wanted to acknowledge that today.

Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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I thank Ms Mockler.

Are there any other questions? I am always fearful to ask that one when the witnesses are here.

Patrick Costello (Dublin South Central, Green Party)
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I have lots of comments but I will save them for afterwards.

Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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I thank all of our witnesses for being here. It was a really good discussion and engagement, which was great. I need to get agreement to publish the opening statements on the Oireachtas website. Is that agreed? I thank you all.