HSE needs to do more on childcare

We need to double the number of social workers in the childcare and child protection area in Ireland, and the 200 extra promised by the government is only a drop in the ocean, according to Ineke Durville, president, Irish Association of Social Workers (IASW).

She explained that in Ireland approximately 700 of 2,700 social workers work with children and families.  In England, there is a social worker for every 500 people whereas in Ireland there is one for every 1,600.   

Ineke Durville was speaking after the publication of reports into foster care provision in some Dublin areas by the Health Information Quality Authority (HIQA).  She welcomed the report, which highlighted HSE inaction and inadequacies in certain cases, and said that social workers are trying to do as much as they can in the absence of adequate resources and staff. 

Heavy caseloads mean that social workers are unable to intervene as early as they might like, and they are unable to spend time building relationships with families and communities.  They also struggle with limited placemen options for children who need to be taken into care.

Declan Coogan, spokesperson for the IASW and lecturer with the Masters in Social Work Programme at NUI Galway stated that the reports highlight again the failure to provide adequate and safe care of the children by not allocating a social worker to every child in care.  Depending on the area of Dublin between 30% and 47% of the children did not have an allocated social worker. 

He again called for the full resourcing of social work teams with social work, administrative and other support positions, and by allocating a social worker to every child in care. 

Barnardos also welcomed the HIQA investigation reports into foster care services in three HSE Dublin areas.  “While we welcome the very strong response to the HIQA reports published today, we are concerned by what appears to us to be a dilution of the Government's commitment to publish legislation putting Children First on a statutory footing.” 

“This commitment was made last year under the Ryan Implementation Plan yet today Minister Andrews has announced that Government will develop ‘a comprehensive implementation assurance framework' to ensure the uniform and consistent implementation of the guidelines.  Does this new language mean that the Government is now abandoning the commitment to legislate on this crucial child protection issue?  If so, that would represent a complete betrayal of all the promises made after the Ryan and Murphy report," said Fergus Finlay, CEO, Barnardos.

He added that the HSE has failed to consistently and adequately implement the Children First guidelines and that hundreds of committed professionals working on the front line of child protection have been let down by systems failure for too long.  Barnardos welcomed the decision to appoint a National Director with responsibility for child protection services in the HSE but stressed that this person would need full authority, adequate resources and support to fully tackle the challenge of reform of the system from within.

The charity also praised the Government's prioritisation of HIQA's inspection of child protection services and welcomed the announcement that the Authority's mandate to develop standards for child protection and inspect services against these standards will be brought forward to this year. 

However, Mr. Finlay condemned the Government's decision to defer the registration of children's residential centres to a later date and consequently, to delay full inspection of the services provided to children who have disabilities, who are homeless, separated and in St. Patrick's institution.

by Ann Marie Foley