Ms Lorna Kavanagh:

We are looking to increase our number of family placements, those being, fostering and supported lodgings.

On the nature of the countries that children come from, there are not very established communities, like Afghani families, who are settled and might be in a position to take on a child. However, we could recruit foster carers and supported lodging providers who could offer a Muslim-friendly placement, so they would be from that faith. There are options that we can explore more fully and we are looking at doing that.

In terms of the increased numbers and upscaling, it can take a year to recruit and assess a foster carer, so we have had to focus on the residential provision but we are committed to increasing our provision of family placements.

On aftercare for children on reaching 18, we are subject to the provisions on the entitlement to aftercare. Under the strategy for aftercare, the child has to be in Tusla care for 12 months. All young people arriving at 17 years of age do not have an entitlement because they will not have been here for a year. Where children have not had their status determined, they transition to IPAS accommodation when they reach 18. That is really quite difficult but we advocate and lobby for them as much as we can to try to keep them in the areas where they live. That is not always possible but we undertake to do that.

Where young people have their status before 18 but do not have an entitlement to aftercare, we are holding on to those young people and engaging with the local authority on accommodation for them to move on to. No child is being discharged into homelessness with the emergency number. They are going into homeless services but it is all negotiated and named placement. We support them through our aftercare duty clinic and an aftercare support worker. As to the full aftercare package, though - a moving in allowance, a rent allowance and all of that support - there are clear rules around entitlements under that. We would like to see some changes. We looked to see that there was provision for aftercare where children had been with us under section 5, which is not in care as such. We are looking at whether there is capacity to develop a different funding stream around supporting their integration so that they get more support than they are currently.