Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)
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Question 80: To ask the Minister for Health and Children his plans to address youth homelessness; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [7552/11]

James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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The Youth Homelessness Strategy was published in 2001 and its stated goal is to reduce and if possible eliminate youth homelessness. It focuses on preventative measures, keeping or re-integrating a child within their own community. It makes clear that children who are homeless need more than a bed for the night and outlines why some children and youths are vulnerable to becoming homeless, including those leaving state care or detention.

The causes for young children becoming homeless are varied and accordingly, it is a complicated issue for which there is no one solution. In 2004 a study, commissioned by the Office for the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, found that the early to mid-teenage years was the period of greatest risk of homelessness; the process of becoming homeless could be traced to early childhood and disruption of various kinds, such as household instability, family conflict, family illness; almost all resided in poor neighbourhoods and a large number grew up in households where their parent(s) or caregiver(s) struggled to provide them with adequate care or attention; most had endured multiple forms of childhood adversity, including hardship, neglect, inadequate or inconsistent care of abuse; Parental illness or death was common, as was family conflict and parental alcohol or drug abuse. Frequent moves to and from different locations and living situation featured in several accounts as did physical and less frequently, sexual abuse during childhood and for the majority schooling was severely disrupted, and many found it difficult to maintain academic standards and the expectations of the schools they attended, resulting in specific literacy and / or numeracy problems. Furthermore, a key international research finding is that young people leaving care are vulnerable to becoming homeless.

Collecting accurate information on youth homelessness has proven very difficult as, by its very nature, the young people may not be engaged with a service, there may be multiple referrals for a single child, and children who are not homeless, but may be in care or in need of a short term placement, may also use the day and social work services from time to time.

The Office for the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs has responsibility for monitoring the implementation of the strategy and priority has been given to a review of the Youth Homelessness Strategy in 2011. Over recent months, a number of meetings have been held with the HSE to review the implementation of the youth homelessness strategy nationwide, to improve the quality of information and to to improve the aftercare service. As part of this review, the Office for the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs will also be engaging with relevant key personnel in both the public and voluntary sector with a view to making recommendations as to how youth homelessness can best be tackled into the future.

The HSE has recently established a Youth Homelessness Group and an audit of existing services, including the use of Section 5 of the Child Care Act, 1995, is currently underway. From January of this year, the HSE is collecting details on the numbers of individual young people using the youth homeless services and not, as previously, the number of referrals. Reporting requirements have been enhanced by the inclusion of a number of new 'Performance Activity and Performance Indicators' (P.I.s) under the Children and Family heading which will provide useful information on children accessing youth homeless centres, the Out of Hours services or the Emergency Place of Safety services. It is important not to confuse the short term use of homelessness services and fostercare services for the provision of "emergency placements" with the issue of youth homelessness.

The provision of an appropriate aftercare service has been highlighted as a key element to achieving positive outcomes for young people leaving care. Aftercare services assist young people leaving care to achieve a successful transition from the care environment to independent adult life in the community. The HSE has now finalised its National Aftercare Policy and implementation of the Policy has now commenced with the establishment of the Implementation Group underway. The Group represents HSE staff and managers, representatives of the voluntary sector and a young persons representative.