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.