The Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) has today published an inspection report on the foster care services operated by the Child and Family Agency (Tusla) in the Mid West Service Area. The Mid West Service Area comprises the counties of Clare, Limerick, North Tipperary and the city of Limerick.

HIQA is authorised by the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs under Section 69 of the Child Care Act, 1991, as amended by Section 26 of the Child Care (Amendment) Act 2011, to inspect foster care services provided by Tusla, to report on its findings to the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs and to inspect services taking care of a child on behalf of Tusla, including non-statutory providers of foster care. HIQA monitors foster care services against the National Standards for Foster Care, 2003.

As part of its 2017 monitoring programme, HIQA is conducting thematic inspections across all 17 Tusla service areas which focus on the recruitment, assessment, approval, supervision and review of foster carers. These thematic inspections are announced and will cover eight standards relating to this theme.

Of the eight standards inspected against in this area, three standards were substantially compliant and five standards were non-compliant, three of which were major non-compliances.

While foster carers received adequate training to fulfil their role, supervision and support of foster carers was not provided in line with the standards. General foster care assessments were comprehensive and of good quality but were not timely and there were long delays in the completion of assessments of relative foster carers. There was no record of Garda Síochána (police) vetting for a number of foster carers and a substantial number of household members aged 16 years and over did not have Garda vetting.

In a number of foster carer households, neither the foster carers nor the children had been allocated a social worker. Furthermore, safeguarding visits to these households were infrequent. Inspectors requested and received written assurances that these foster carers have now received appropriate safeguarding visits.

Child protection concerns and allegations were not managed in line with Children First (2001) and were not notified to the foster care committee in a timely way. There was a lack of effective recruitment and retention strategies in the area, resulting in an insufficient number of foster carers to meet the needs of the service.

The service area has provided an action plan response to address the non-compliances identified on inspection.