Written answers

Wednesday, 2 December 2020

Department of Children and Youth Affairs

Foster Care

Photo of Kathleen FunchionKathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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107. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the actions he is taking to address the shortage of foster carers; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40727/20]

Photo of Roderic O'GormanRoderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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Tusla, the Child and Family Agency, supports over 90% of children in state care by placing them with foster carers.

Tusla is recruiting foster carers, on an ongoing basis, to meet the need for placements for children who need emergency, respite and long term care in a family setting.

In October of this year Tusla completed an annual national campaign aimed at raising awareness and encouraging people to consider fostering. This ‘Raising Amazing’ foster care week has led to enquiries from people interested in becoming foster carers and following due process it is anticipated will lead to new foster carers.

Tusla is also engaged in recruiting carers who can be an appropriate match for children from Traveller and Roma communities. Dedicated project workers with links to these communities will be recruited to work alongside the Tusla fostering teams.

Tusla, in conjunction with my Department, is also working on recruiting additional foster carers to care for unaccompanied minors under an enhanced specialised service called Failte Care. This foster care service will focus on providing placements for unaccompanied children seeking asylum and unaccompanied refugee children and will provide key supports to them and their foster carers.

Issues that impact on the need for ongoing recruitment of foster carers include the number of young adults that are remaining with carers when they leave care. In the middle of this year, Tusla reported that 47% of young people availing of an aftercare service remained living with their carers. This trend, whilst highly desirable, contributes to the of availability of foster carers.

Another interesting trend is the growing stability of placements of children in foster care. Tusla publish data on the number of children in care in their third or greater placement within the previous 12 months. This metric is considered a proxy for placement stability. At the end of December 2019, there were 137 children in their third or greater placement within the previous 12 months, which accounts for 2.3% of the care population only. This percentage has remained relatively stable over the last five years (Table 1).

Table 1 Children in the third or greater placement within the previous 12 months, 2015-2019

- 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
# children in care 6,364 6,267 6,116 5,974 5,916
# in 3rd placement 132 169 142 114 137
% in 3rd placement 2.1% 2.7% 2.3% 1.9% 2.3%

Source: Review of Adequacy report, 2019, p.66)

This data does not include children in care under the Social Work Team for Separated Children Seeking Asylum

At the end of December 2019, there were 137 children in their third or greater placement within the previous 12 months. This amounts to 2.3% of all children in care, up slightly from 1.9% (114/5,974) in 2018 when the lowest percentage for the period 2015 – 2018 was reported, but similar to that for 2017 (2.3%)

While the percentage compares favorably with percentages reported in other jurisdictions including England 10%; Wales 10% and Scotland 5.1% (2017/2018 data), interpretation needs to be considered in the context of differing processes and procedures and definitions that may exist in other jurisdictions.

The achievement of this level of stability requires Tusla to have an ongoing stream of new foster carers available and while there is a small downward trend in the number of children in care this does not impact significantly on the need of new carers.

In 2021, my Department intends to bring enhanced policy and strategic focus to the critically important area of Children in Care. This work will be advanced in collaboration with Tusla and a key component of this will be the support and development of foster care.

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