Written answers

Tuesday, 1 May 2018

Department of Children and Youth Affairs

Child and Family Agency Staff

Photo of Seán SherlockSeán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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37. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs her plans with regard to recruiting more social workers. [18786/18]

Photo of Tommy BroughanTommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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38. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the number of social work vacancies in Tusla by title; the number of children classified as high priority awaiting allocation of a social worker; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [18546/18]

Photo of Tommy BroughanTommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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45. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the work she is undertaking alongside Tusla to address staff recruitment and retention issues; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [18545/18]

Photo of Katherine ZapponeKatherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 37, 38 and 45 together.

I acknowledge that the recruitment and retention of social workers is one of the biggest challenges for Tusla with only 200-250 graduating per year in a very competitive labour market.

Working in child protection is one of the most difficult areas, and I fully appreciate the dedication of all professionals in Tusla who undertake this extremely important task.

I am fully supportive of Tusla’s proactive approach to recruiting, supporting and retaining staff across all grades. In support of this I have provided for a significant increase in Tusla’s funding allocation with an increase of €40.6m in 2018 and a total increase of €144m since its establishment in 2014.

Given this level of funding, Tusla expects to increase its total workforce by approximately 422 resulting in a total workforce of 4118 whole time equivalents (WTE) by the end of 2018.

Also, given the current limited availability of social work graduates, Tusla expects at least 45 of these staff to be additional social workers. There will also be proactive recruitment of grades such as social care and clerical administration staff to support social workers to ensure that they can focus on their core tasks.

To support Tusla’s ambitious recruitment targets it launched its 2018 graduate recruitment campaign last September. This campaign is currently open for applications with interviews expected to commence in May/June 2018.

The campaign included Northern Ireland and Scotland. Continuing Tusla Recruit’sproactive approach of previous years all campuses were visited and over 200 students registered their interest. Tusla Recruitmaintains on-going communications with the registered students and partners them through the application and CORU registration process with a view to making Tusla an employer of choice.

Tusla also has an on-going rolling campaign to attract existing social workers who have a particular interest in working in child protection. This campaign is also designed to appeal to social workers who may currently be living abroad and wish to move to Ireland.

I have also asked Tusla to develop a Multi-annual Strategic Workforce Planto identify the future composition of Tusla’s workforce so as to deliver on Tusla’s priorities. I expect the Plan to encompass a range of activities aimed at addressing Tusla’s short, medium and long term needs and to manage the current challenges Tusla faces recruiting social workers.

The Plan will also form the basis of engaging with key stakeholders such as the education sector to ensure a sustainable supply of social workers in the future.

With regard to current vacancies, Tusla advises that 207 social work posts are at various stages of the recruitment process.

Of the 207 posts:

- 26 are Senior Social Work Practitioner;

- 15 are Principal Social Worker;

- 17 are Social Worker - Team Leader and

- 149 are Social Worker.

Tusla publish their Performance and Activity data on a monthly basis and I can inform you that as of the end of February 2018 there were 4,756 cases awaiting allocation to a social worker, out of 24,366 open cases.

Of the total number of unallocated cases, 898 were categorised as High Priority. An unallocated case relates to a case about a child that is deemed to need a social work assessment, but has not yet been allocated to a social worker.

It is important to note that all urgent and emergency cases receive immediate attention by the local duty social work team. The majority of unallocated cases are new referrals. However, they may also include children living with their families who had an allocated social worker, or to a child in care, where there may be a social work vacancy.

Tusla is working hard to maintain and improve its retention rate. In March 2018 it had a total staff turnover rate of 5.6%. The current social worker turnover rate is 8.1% compared to 9.4% in March 2017. A low turnover rate is clearly in the interest of vulnerable children and families and it is also more efficient for the organisation as a whole.

Tusla values its staff and in acknowledgement of this it has established a Retention Steering Group to plan and implement an integrated approach to retention throughout the organisation. Tusla's Health, Wellbeing and Employee Assistance Programmehas a range of services available to staff. The Programme has completed a staff survey on retention and its findings will inform part of a new Strategy on Retention for Tusla.

Tusla is also placing an increased focus on well-being by actively encouraging employees to adopt behaviours that will improve their life and improve workforce morale.

Furthermore as part of its retention strategy, Tusla has also implemented an extensive Continuous Professional Development Strategyin recent years. The strategy commits all social workers to having a minimum of 21 hours for personal development plans and 10 hours for engaging in continuous profession development.

Tusla has also introduced a National Transfer Policyto facilitate staff wishing to relocate to another part of the country within Tusla’s services while ensuring that the Agency retains their valuable expertise.

Other supports for Tusla staff include rehabilitation services to support staff that are out of work due to injury or illness and a Critical Incident Stress Management Teamto support teams and individuals in the event of any traumatic event.

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