Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent)
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1786.To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if he will consider providing funding for the expansion of the Tusla – Child and Family Agency regional therapeutic teams to ensure children in foster care are provided with early interventions, and access to crucial therapeutic supports and early intervention approaches and initiatives; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31657/24]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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Tusla, the Child and Family Agency, is required under the Child and Family Agency Act (2013) to support and promote the welfare and protection of children; to support and encourage the effective functioning of families; and to provide services relating to the psychological welfare of children and their families (excluding the provision of specialist mental health services for children).

As the Deputy may be aware Tusla has committed to a strategic approach seeking to deliver an integrated framework for therapeutic services as part of a three-year plan to establish the high-level framework and operating model for Tusla Therapeutic Services. As part of this plan Tusla has established multi-disciplinary teams across six service areas by recruiting Speech and Language Therapists and Occupational Therapists to work with existing therapeutic staff such as psychologists.

Tusla has advised that the focus of these teams is on the early identification of therapeutic needs of children on admission to care, including children to be placed in foster care, and which will inform their care plan.

The Deputy may be aware that Tusla has set out a specific action contained within its 2024 Business Plan to have six fully operational Multidisciplinary Area Based Therapeutic teams put in place. Tusla has advised that the teams in the six service areas are now nearly at full strength. I am also aware that it is an aim of Tusla that 100% of new children or young people coming into State care in the six areas where Therapeutic Teams have been funded will have multidisciplinary input into their care planning.

Tusla is currently engaging with the Department detailing the funding requirements for the Agency in 2025. I can assure the Deputy that I will work with Government colleagues through the Estimates process and any funding decisions announced following Budget 2025. Any additional funding requirements in respect of Tusla’s Therapeutic Services shall be considered in this context.