Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the current procedures to deal with children at risk; the sequence of events following a report from whatever quarter in such matters; the average length of time taken to deal with any issues arising; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [57038/12]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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The Children First National Guidance for the Protection and Welfare of Children, which I published in 2011, provides clarity and guidance for individuals and organisations in identifying and responding appropriately to child abuse and neglect. It also sets out what organisations that care for or work with children should do to ensure they are safe whilst in the care of the organisation. Work is ongoing in my Department to put the relevant elements of Children First on a statutory footing.

The Deputy is advised that in cases where there is concern for the welfare and protection of a child, a report should be made at the earliest opportunity to the HSE and/or An Garda Síochána as set out in Children First: National Guidance for the Protection and Welfare of Children.

Once a referral has been made to the HSE Children and Family Services all cases are managed through a standardised business process. All reports of concern for the safety or well-being of a child are handled initially by the Duty/Intake team for the purposes of assessment. All staff receiving such a referral are trained in the duty system and are obliged to to treat seriously all child welfare and protection concerns whatever their source. Once a report has been made the screening stage deals with the information reported and preliminary enquiries are concerned with formulating an appropriate response. At this stage teams will also screen out those enquiries, reports, requests for service etc that do not fall within the responsibility of the Child Welfare and Protection team.

Once it is agreed by the Duty Team Leader that it is a correct referral the case is allocated immediately for an Initial Assessment. This is a time limited process to allow that gathering of sufficient information on the needs and risks within a case so that informed decisions and recommendations can be made and actions that will result in better outcomes for children are taken. In identifying risk it is the professional judgement of the duty team leader to assess if immediate action is required. Risk is assessed if the child is at ongoing significant risk. This is decided based on the information received with the referral, the seriousness of the abuse reported, the likely level of risk to the future safety and welfare of the child and the degree of professional confidence in the information that either the abuse has occurred and is likely to be repeated or that the child is at immediate risk. An ongoing process of risk analysis continues throughout the period of the initial assessment.

The duty team leader, together with members of the team, will categorise the information received under the following categories:-

- level 1 - child and family must be seen immediately

- level 2 - child and family must be seem within 3 days

- level 3 - child and family must be seem within 7 days

Comprehensive information on the extensive process is available on the HSE website under the Standardised Business Process documentation.

As regards the average length of time to deal with issues arising, the Deputy will be aware that the HSE compiles monthly performance reports which provide an overall analysis of key performance data. In the area of children and family services this suite of indicators has recently been expanded to include new indicators aimed at capturing the responsiveness of services to referrals of concerns. These indicators include details of the number of referrals to child welfare and protection teams in the reporting period, the number of such referrals where a preliminary assessment took place within 24 hours, the number leading to initial assessments and the number of such assessments completed within 21 days.

In addition, the new Child and Family Support Agency with dedicated responsibility for the delivery of child welfare and protection services is to be established. Currently, HSE Children and Family Services are engaged in a major programme of reform. A major element of which involves implementing consistent and timely child protection procedures in line with the revised national guidelines, published last year-Children First 201, through a single, national, service delivery model, which is in development, and through the introduction of a National Child Care Information System (NCCIS).

The NCCIS will be the central system supporting Social Work services. As a social work case management system, it will be used to record and store the case history of every child and other clients of the service. Management information will be derived automatically from the case management system. The introduction of the NCCIS is a high priority and will help in the management of social work case management and will significantly improve the level, quality and accessibility of information in respect of Children and Family Services.