Joint Committee on Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth debate -
Tuesday, 11 Oct 2022

Alternative Aftercare Services for Young Adults: Discussion

Chairman

Apologies have been received from Senators O'Sullivan, Seery Kearney and Clonan. We will have two sessions today. The item on the agenda for consideration at this first session is alternative aftercare services for young adults. We are joined representatives of the Simon Community. I welcome in the committee room Mr. Wayne Stanley, head of policy and communications, and Ms Karen Feeney, who is head of services of Galway Simon Community. I also welcome Ms Aisling O'Hara, service manager for the youth service and community-based housing in Galway Simon Community, who is joining us on Microsoft Teams. I thank them for being with us at this meeting.

The Teams chat function should be used only to let us know if there are any difficulties or urgent matters. It is not to be used to make general comments or statements during the meetings.

I remind members of the constitutional requirement that they must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex to contribute in public meetings. I cannot permit a member to participate where he or she is not adhering to that constitutional requirement, so anybody who does participate through Teams from outside the precincts will be asked to leave the meeting. I ask any committee members who are partaking via Teams confirm, prior to making their contribution, that they are on the grounds of the Leinster House campus.

In advance of inviting our guests to deliver their opening statement, I advise them of the following in respect of parliamentary privilege. Witnesses who are participating from within the committee room are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not criticise nor make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. If, therefore, their statements are potentially defamatory in respect of an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks and it is imperative they comply with any such direction. In the case of witnesses appearing virtually before the committee, there is uncertainty as to whether parliamentary privilege would apply to their evidence from a location outside of the parliamentary precincts of Leinster House. If, therefore, they are directed by me to cease giving evidence on a matter, it is imperative they comply with any such direction.

We are delighted to be able to hold this session, which has been a long time coming. I invite Mr. Stanley to make his opening statement.

Mr. Wayne Stanley

We thank the committee for the invitation. I am joined by my colleagues Karen and Aisling, who run the dedicated youth service in Galway Simon Community. It is a service we are very proud of and it identified a number of the issues we are going to talk about. The Simon Communities are also a member of the Irish Coalition to End Youth Homelessness and sit on the national homeless action committee. In these roles, we have ongoing collaborative dialogue with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage in the development of the upcoming youth homelessness strategy.

Today we wish to highlight the needs and experiences of young people who have experienced household disruption or adverse childhood experiences but who have never officially entered State care. These young people are over-represented in homelessness because they fall through the cracks of support systems. We bring this discussion to the committee because we believe there is the potential to reduce the experience of homelessness for these young people through targeted intervention and collaboration. In our broader submission, we have also highlighted the needs of young people leaving State care. This group are an identifiable population, meaning it is easier to target them with housing supports and homeless prevention.

However, our focus today lies with an additional cohort who have experienced adverse childhood experiences but have not been taken into care. Some of these may be known to Tusla due to welfare concerns, most likely because they experienced family breakdown as a late teenager but did not officially enter care, possibly because they aged out or because the circumstances at the time were not deemed to be at a level of risk that warranted significant intervention. This can include those who have had experiences of abuse, who have been surrounded by addiction or who have experienced family breakdown in their late teens. Studies show these young people are over-represented among early school leavers, experience higher rates of mental health difficulties and are over-represented among homeless adults compared with the general population.

The concern is that this group are, to a certain extent, currently unknown or invisible and, therefore, there appears to be less awareness of their needs, which we fear is compounding the issues. These young people often require support but they fall through the cracks of our support systems, making them vulnerable to homelessness, poverty and educational disadvantage. They do not have access to social supports similar to those provided in aftercare, which prepare young people for the transition into adult life. They often receive a lower social welfare rate, which can compound the risk of poverty and housing insecurity. We fear they are vulnerable to hidden homelessness because they do not have support to navigate or be able to afford the housing market. They are not entitled to housing support or targeted homelessness prevention such as the capital assistance scheme, CAS, for care leavers provided through Tusla and the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. They are not currently entitled to additional educational supports for children in care and aftercare such as the bursary scheme operated by Tusla and the Department of Children, Disability, Equability, Integration and Youth. The upcoming youth homelessness strategy appears firm that it will focus on young people after the age of 18. However, the threat of homelessness and housing security begins well before then. Therefore, Tusla in particular can play a central role in protecting this group from housing insecurity. A co-ordinated, universal response and policy measures can be developed and implemented to protect this group from homelessness and housing insecurity as they enter adulthood.

There are a number of recommendations in that regard. Additional key workers can provide support into early adulthood, including with homelessness prevention. Existing homelessness prevention policies such as the CAS for care leavers could be expanded to be more inclusive of all young people at risk of homelessness. Young people under the age of 25 are still subject to a lower social welfare rate. While some categories of young people have been included in the higher rate, this particular welfare group are not and this compounds their risk of poverty and homelessness. Collaboration could also be increased. Galway Simon Community's dedicated youth service is a prime example of successful collaboration between a range of stakeholders. This multi-agency partnership that exists between Galway Simon Community, Galway City Council and Tusla to ensure youth services are well informed and young people are well supported has proven effective in the outcomes it is having for young people, such as increased employment among the group. There is further potential in this model if appropriate housing can be sourced. While this might look different in other areas where working relationships differ, the core principle of a dedicated partnership service has proven very effective. The Simon Communities of Ireland see value and potential in this model and wish to work with the committee and agencies to promote and extend this type of collaborative work.

Chairman

I thank Mr. Stanley.

Deputy Sean Sherlock

I thank our guests for their submission. It was very well researched. This is the first time I have seen some sort of crystallisation of the issue of vulnerability among that cohort of about 10,000 people, including the 1,274 in the 18-to-24-year-old category. They come to us, as public representatives, and they present in some way, shape or form but we just do not know how to deal with the issue. There is no playbook for any Deputy or Senator for dealing with that cohort of people. If they have been in the care system, there is no transition, and if they have not and they are identified as having had, as Mr. Stanley noted, an adverse child experience, they just fall through the gaps. When I talk to local authorities, there does not seem to be a solution there either. The question is how we can help these people transition and what our guests have come up with is, potentially, a way forward.

Are they confident they can get sufficient traction with this strategy such that resources will be provided, given this will be about resources following on from their organisation's advocacy? Can we sort it out? Is there a sympathetic ear at departmental level?

Mr. Wayne Stanley

There are good examples of the work but I might hand over to Ms Feeney on this. In my experience of officials, Ministers and other politicians across parties, if a solution that works is provided, a listening ear is generally given in return. More money is definitely needed. One of the main issues we have at the moment, which Ms Feeney and I were just talking about before the meeting started, is that with the housing crisis, the dominos keep falling and the vulnerability of those young people coming to the services is increasing.

I will allow Ms Feeney speak to this because she will tell the story better than me. We have examples of things that work. There is a major problem on the housing side but there is a collaboration at local level in Galway and if that can be replicated, and we can build momentum behind it, it can be done. In terms of a listening ear, that shifts. We have a youth homelessness strategy on the way and we hope to expand from that.

Deputy Sean Sherlock

I am not sure how much time I have. The Galway example involves placing people in accommodation. What is the real-time experience of somebody who presents to a local authority, for instance, where he or she has to fill out a housing application form and go through this bureaucratic process?

Ms Karen Feeney

A multi-agency, almost local, task force was set up because young 18- to 24-year-olds were increasingly presenting for homeless services in 2012 and 2013. A group got together and one of the first things it did was to have some dedicated apartments. We initially started off with eight units of accommodation. That way it was very much about keeping young people out of emergency homeless services, which is a completely different shift in their identity. A lot of planning and design went into that. In this instance, the local authority provided the accommodation units initially. The next resource piece is around staffing. That involves tailored support to young people to either be in work or training, and to get counselling or the other allied health services they need. It is very much around that. It is then about supporting them to move on into accommodation.

Since 2016, the numbers seeking our help have increased. We have an additional four units and now have 12 beds altogether. We believe that within the context of Galway it has kept the numbers presenting to emergency services much lower than they otherwise would have been. For the young people involved, they do not have this identity of having been in homeless services. It is very much about supported housing.

Deputy Sean Sherlock

Is it known by people on the ground that there is a front door they can go through?

Ms Karen Feeney

Absolutely, yes. As there is that collaboration with Tusla, quite a number of young people have passed through. We have worked with approximately 150 young people since the project started, and opened and admitted people, in 2016. Of those, probably a good 50% have been through the aftercare system. Still another 40% would have been from families or situations where there was an awful lot of stress but which did not meet the threshold for the young person to go into care. In some instances, and credit where credit is due, Trojan work has been done by people - through Meitheals, for example - who are there trying to help out. It is just that the family is too threadbare to support the young person in homelessness, or at risk of it, or in hidden homelessness.

The spend is not that much. What it is taking to deliver this service is not expensive considering that what it is saving is significant. Annualised through section 10, it takes less than €130,000 a year to run this service. The major point is that it is about prevention. We see the outcomes for people. At a philosophical level, we have also been committed to trying to break a lot of intergenerational cycles where we have known parents and grandparents who were in services previously. We can see that tailored support makes a difference. We are in partnership with Tusla and its aftercare service for many of our clients but it is about giving people that.

Once people move into accommodation, we are there to support them. We do not get too focused on age. Services do not cut out for people when they reach the age of 25 because small interventions can stop small problems becoming big problems and people then tend to sustain accommodation. A small percentage of cases will end in emergency accommodation. Many of the people we support are in contact with the criminal justice system but do not necessarily go to prison and there is low recidivism. We can see that.

Chairman

I have to stick to the time. We are supposed to finish at 4.15 p.m. We might finish before that in which case people can come back in for a second round. There are a few members online.

Deputy Mark Ward

I thank the representatives for their opening statement. It was very good to read the report. I have worked in homeless services in the past. I have also been homeless and I know of the challenges that are faced. I was homeless as an adult and not as a young person, so I can only imagine how difficult it is for young people.

Youth homelessness has always been a major issue. Often, the only temporary and emergency accommodation available is in the hostel-like scenario, where young people are often in the same rooms as older people who are more entrenched in homelessness. That creates its own problems. Is there any outreach or in-reach to these facilities by the Simon Community that offers young people supports when they are in emergency accommodation? For example, this housing crisis is probably the worst I have ever seen. I have been an elected representative since 2016 and it is the worst I have seen it. The bespoke places for young people in emergency accommodation are drying up. There are so many people looking for help that is simply not there. In the absence of bespoke young persons' emergency accommodation, does the Simon Community undertake any in-reach to any of the other facilities out there to identify these young people and offer them supports at that level?

Ms Karen Feeney

I am speaking very much to Galway. One of the fortunate things about Galway is that is a more manageable population. There are two emergency hostels for men in the city and one for women. We run one of those hostels and another organisation, COPE Galway, runs the Fairgreen Hostel.

There is a pretty conscious effort, and there has been a lot of work in the collaboration we have in Galway, to as far as possible keep young people - the under-25s - out of that emergency situation. This is what this project was dreamt up to do. I believe we will come under more pressure. I recall at the planning phase talking about young people ending up in tourist hostels. There is no chance of young people getting beds in tourist hostels at present because all the university students are in them. It is a completely different-----

Deputy Mark Ward

It is a perfect storm at the moment.

Ms Karen Feeney

There is often case management around complex cases. We do in-reach to prisons. Sometimes, if people have to wait for a bed through us, they may have to spend time in an emergency service. The short answer to the Deputy's question is "Yes" but given the current climate and how much pressure there is, we can see the realities of rough sleeping among young people are beginning to increase. There is a very different climate out there.

Deputy Mark Ward

I have witnessed it. I am interested in the Galway project. If something is working, we do not have to reinvent the wheel. How does Ms Feeney see that being rolled out for a bigger population, such as Dublin? We have four local authorities in Dublin. Would she start with one smaller local authority or one area and work it out that way? What is her thinking on that?

Ms Karen Feeney

From our experience, it is about that collaboration between the local authority, those of us delivering services, social inclusion and Tusla, and each part of that committing a certain amount of resources. A big part of it is having workers that will follow individual client journeys. A big thing that happens to young people is that somebody says to them that they cannot do something with them until they fill out a form, and they are sent off to do it, but if they are not organised or are under stress, that will not happen. Sometimes, we really need people to hand-hold through that system so young people do not fall through.

Deputy Mark Ward

Does Galway Simon Community have a high staff turnover or does it have-----

Ms Karen Feeney

No, we have-----

Deputy Mark Ward

-----the same people? That is very important. Staff who are in place a long time are able to build up that trust and relationship with young people.

Ms Karen Feeney

As I said, on the numbers we have, and Ms O'Hara will probably correct me, between those we accommodate and those we support in their own accommodation we have a caseload of just over 40.

We have two staff who are key workers and case managers and two who are project assistants, or HSAs, as well. We have not had a massive turnover but the project is tight in regard to this target group.

Deputy Mark Ward

That is important. We will have Tusla in later. One of the criticisms we often get about Tusla relates to the high turnover of staff which means that young people must tell their story over and over again and are retraumatised. There is a lesson there. If staff can be looked after and retained, that builds up a relationship with young people so they can move on to the next stage of their lives.

Dr. Walter Stanley

If Ms O'Hara wants to come in, that is fine.

Ms Aisling O'Hara

I will give feedback on Deputy Ward's question. As a service. the Galway Simon Community youth service has really developed. Reflecting on what Ms Feeney spoke about, we started off with four apartments and then gained two more units. The service itself has developed in terms of the outreach capacity. Some 62% of the young people we are supporting this year are supported through community supports. We view that as a preventative piece. We are seeking to prevent young people from coming into habitual homelessness. It is important that we are conducive to the needs of young people. When we look at the needs of young people, we see that some of those things are identity, meaning, belonging, self-actualisation and psychological needs. If a young person is homeless, his or her needs, including the need for a sense of belonging, are not being met. We are working with a cohort of young people who do not belong anywhere because they are homeless. Those things are really important in making sure we are conducive to the needs of young people. The preventative piece we try to do by working with and supporting young people through the community is an important part of that. If we can prevent a young person coming into any service, that is the optimum result.

Deputy Mark Ward

I thank Ms O'Hara.

Deputy Holly Cairns

I thank the witnesses for taking the time to help us to understand the needs and experiences of young people in complex situations. I refer in particular to their accounts of how vulnerable people who age out of State care and experience household disruption are left susceptible to homelessness and poverty. It is shocking that 1,274 young people aged 18 to 24 were officially recorded as homeless in August. Not only is it a record high number but, as the witnesses have indicated, the figure is likely to be much higher in reality. We have also been shown that it is largely an invisible group of people who can fall through the cracks. Services such as those provided by the witnesses are among the only insights we have into this world.

I have a few questions. If there is not time to answer them, a written reply would be helpful to inform the committee. The opening statement and submission highlighted the need for key workers to provide support into early adulthood around homelessness prevention, provision and life skills. Will the witnesses elaborate on the importance of this support and give an indication of how many key workers we have and how many are needed? Will they outline how people under the age of 25 are still subject to a lower social welfare rate of €117.70, which compounds their risk of poverty and homelessness? From my perspective that lower rate is an ideological one from centre-right government parties and is not based on an assessment of the needs of that cohort. Will the witnesses give us a sense of the importance of ensuring vulnerable young people receive the higher social welfare rate? One of the Simon Community's policy recommendations is the expansion of the CAS in terms of eligibility and ambition. This scheme provides funding for housing in specific categories of housing need, including youth homelessness. Will the witnesses outline for the committee the importance of that expansion? Finally, will they give us a sense of how these issues manifest regionally? Are there variations between counties or urban and rural settings?

Ms Karen Feeney

I hope I have understood the Deputy's questions correctly. She can correct me if I am not answering them. At this stage, due to the expansion of the service, we now have two key workers, each of whom probably has an active case load of about 20. We have additional support. People can need more intense supports at different moments in their journey. Much of what is required by young people at the start involves being recognised as homeless. Getting the medical card and the social welfare payment involves overcoming many bureaucratic challenges. Sometimes it is about taking people through that process to ensure they have full access to their entitlements. Much of it can be about helping people who have difficulties with self-regulation and communication. We help them with those kinds of lifestyle issues - how to keep patient in an Intreo office, for example, or how to express their needs to a GP. Such important minutiae are part of the give and take of social care work. There is also the issue of setting goals and ambitions, and getting those kind of wins. The cut and thrust of this day-to-day work is about how to navigate problems and ensure everything is not lost. When young people do not have support, it can be like a game of snakes and ladders in which a few badly chosen words, an ill-judged loss of temper or a missed appointment causes them to go back down the snake again. Our work is about having somebody to accompany people through that journey.

Deputy Holly Cairns

Are there just two key workers at the moment?

Ms Karen Feeney

We have two key workers. There are four people on the team altogether, plus Ms O'Hara as the manager. There are also two people to help with practical tasks because at times people need more intense support. There is flexibility within it. We may not work at the same intensity as Housing First.

Deputy Holly Cairns

Are more key workers needed by the service?

Ms Karen Feeney

It depends on the numbers we are dealing with. We have grown. Initially, there was just one worker on the project but it has grown. Our core funding is through section 10, but we also have a contribution from Tusla.

In response to the Deputy's question about the social welfare payment, if I recall properly a significant decision in this regard was made in a budget around 2010 as part of the austerity programme. I can guess that some of the thinking was that if young people were still living at home with their parents, they did not need to call on a full social welfare payment. That may have been understandable, given the pressures at the time. It continued to be available at the higher level for young people coming out of care, but a whole other subset within that cohort never formally went into care. They never had that eligibility even though they were completely on their own. At that time, the rate was about €100. Some young people have diagnoses, may be neurodivergent or have issues with mental health. These issues may not have been picked up. If they were not with families that figured this out before the age of 18 - unfortunately, the burden remains too much with families - it is a big challenge to get it figured out and recognised thereafter. Sometimes they do not have the coping skills, but they are on this lower rate until they are 25. There should be more discretion around the actual needs and vulnerabilities of young people who are in homeless services.

Dr. Walter Stanley

As Ms Feeney said, there was a commitment from the Department and indeed the Minister at the time that young people leaving care would not be affected by those cuts in the social welfare rate. However, there was no capacity within the system to identify groups that were harder to identify. There was a group coming out of care who could be easily identified because they had a care plan. Therefore, they could get an increased rate. If there was a way to identify young people who were homeless or were going to be in homelessness, the logic was that they would have done the same thing for them.

These young people are harder to identify. They fall between the cracks and so they are not getting the increased payment. The truth is that regardless of age, if we want to prevent homelessness, people need time and resources. They need capital. That is how a person stays out of homelessness. If the State is providing less to young people who are competing in what is currently an insane market, then we will see increased homelessness, particularly in the context of vulnerable people.

On the final point about accommodation for care leavers funded via the capital assistance scheme, when that innovation came in, it had the potential to be an absolute game-changer. Young people who go on the housing list are going to be waiting on it for years. CAS-funded accommodation for care leavers provides an opportunity to build up a stock of housing that are permanent homes for young people who are leaving care but that, in our view, should be expanded to young people who are in the more difficult situations to which I refer. The number of people who leave care every year is fairly stationary. It is between 500 to 600 each year. That is far too many, but lots of young people have had very good experiences and perhaps do not need the same level of support. If we can build up a stock of housing for these young people, they will, as they are given support, transition to the next phases of their lives and move on from rental accommodation. They should not be forced to move on but they will naturally do so. Once we build up a stock, we will have the resources to provide accommodation for young people who are in difficult situations and for those leaving care. It will be an absolute game-changer if it is properly resourced, if the accommodation is built and if it is provided to the young people that need it.

Deputy Holly Cairns

What of the eligibility?

Mr. Wayne Stanley

We do need to expand the eligibility, which is a very important aspect of it.

Chairman

I think we will have further time at the end.

Deputy Jennifer Murnane O'Connor

I thank our guests. Some of my questions have actually been answered. All of us have seen homelessness, and very much so recently. There has been an increase in the use of food parcels. In my area in Carlow, St. Clare's Hospitality Kitchen gives out meals every day. The increase in that for young people has been absolutely unreal. It is a concern because when we speak about people who are homeless it can be couch surfing, staying in unsafe accommodation, sleeping in cars or squatting. It may be somebody who is in a domestic abuse situation. There are major issues. Like other members, I work daily with people who are in these situations. If a person has no home address, it is a huge issue to then go in for a social welfare payment. If a person applies to the local authority to go on the housing list when he or she is already couch surfing and has no address to give, straight away this is a massive barrier.

In technical terms, there is no joined-up thinking between Tusla, local authorities and other agencies. It becomes a major issue when a person who is couch surfing or staying with a friend comes to a Deputy. Perhaps through no fault of their own, the person did not get on with his or her parents or the family and had to leave. The amount of red tape to try to sort that out is not right. We need to address this matter.

We also spoke about medical cards, which is another issue. This particular age group is falling between the systems. Unless we have all of the different agencies working together with some sort of a reformed plan, I do not know how we are actually going to resolve this.

We also need to have some system in place if somebody is in such a situation and they also need to get mental health counselling or go into some system for a while. Ms O'Hara spoke about Galway and all of the really good work being done there, which is very welcome. We have great groups in Carlow, but we need to set up some sort of reformed plan at national level whereby we can go to a local authority, a social welfare office or a doctor and say, "This is a case of homelessness and this man or woman is actually couch surfing, has nowhere to go, or is squatting in a little door somewhere".

Reference was made to the fact that 1,274 young people are living in emergency accommodation. Are the majority of those men or women? What are the figures in that regard?

As previous speakers indicated, this has become a massive issue. It needs to be addressed. I am very passionate about it in the sense that it is growing. We need to look at it with the local authorities and with funding. We are always told, through the local authorities or through Tusla, that we have the funding, but when we want to set up funding, for example, for a particular cohort that I feel is falling through the cracks in the system, we do not seem to have a mechanism available. We do not know where to go for support. I am working with people sometimes and I do not know where to go in order to try to help them. How do I help them? When I go to try to sort something out I might go to somebody I know, but that should not be happening. All of us, especially the person who is in the situation and who may be homeless, must have support. We must know where to go and who to contact. In Galway they are very lucky. There are other agencies and while everyone is doing their best - I am not here to criticise anyone - I feel that in small areas such as Carlow, Kilkenny or across the country we need to address how we stop people and young people falling through the cracks.

Mr. Wayne Stanley

Perhaps Ms O'Hara will come in also.

Ms Aisling O'Hara

Listening to the Deputy, I totally understand. It can be so difficult. I spent last week in Budapest at the European Youth Centre with the European Council. My visit included a training session for Housing First for Youth. If anybody is not aware, Housing First for Youth is a programme that we run in Galway. It is also run nationally. The idea behind it is that we house somebody and wrap the supports around that person. It would be the total opposite to the staircase model where the person must be rough sleeping on the streets, then goes into emergency accommodation, and then must wait on the list. It is the total opposite to that. Over the seven days last week, we looked at developing a youth housing first model, which would be very similar to what Mr. Stanley spoke about. It is about extending the CAS for care leavers to other at-risk cohorts of young people. I have worked with colleagues from Canada and there is a body of evidence to show that it works very well in Canada. Scotland also has a really successful model. Overall, this model has reduced the number of presentations into emergency accommodation.

As was said earlier, the model of care for the needs of young people is very important, but if we think about the concept of plasticity and what that actually means, it is that a young person's social environment can be shaped or moulded at key points. This is the point at which somebody can come in and support that young person. If all it takes is housing and security then the money is worth spending on something like this. As Ms Feeney said, the cost is minimal overall and over time. I believe in an extension of CAS for care leavers to the at-risk cohort of young people, reflecting what my colleagues have already said.

Mr. Wayne Stanley

This also provides a framework. The bit that is missing in this is that each department or section in a local authority has people they work with. They administer the systems. How do we build bridges and focus across that? One of the ways is through CAS, which creates that just by being there because it creates a framework into which young people fit. Otherwise, we do need initiatives like those kinds of shared services and experiences across departments in local areas. That is really the way forward. There are models of it for care leavers with multidisciplinary teams where the local authority, the HSE and Tusla are all involved in deciding what the best way forward is for the young person. The model is there.

Senator Lynn Ruane

I have read the presentations. I apologise that I was not here for the start of the meeting. I was attending a meeting of the Joint Committee on Justice.

I would like to ask about the kids who end up in homelessness and the reference that was made to neurodivergence. I do not want to label any kids but is there a type of kid or young person that ends up presenting more in homelessness or is it because the care has ended at the age of 18? Is it the kids who have not had the right interventions and supports around trauma-related behaviours, be that related to neurodivergence or other issues?

Have we not wrapped enough supports around children and foster families in supporting those children? Is it a breakdown of care placements or is it when they turn 18? I wonder whether it is a bit of a mix.

Ms Karen Feeney

It is a bit of a mix. There is a certain number of young people for whom the foster care works well. They progress to third level education and often can have extended placements with the original foster family. With others, things break down around the age of 18. We can often get urgent referrals at that stage. Sometimes when they break down, the young person needs fairly practical support. There are others in whose story of origin, for want of a better word, there has been such extreme neglect and loss. At the end of the day, poverty is the biggest demon. It will always drive the most complex problems.

Senator Lynn Ruane

Ms Feeney spoke of poverty. When we have stood over €117.70 being paid to those children, it feels criminal that we would watch young people who have ended up in a system probably because of poverty and then as a State we have entrenched them further in that poverty by not giving them the supports that they need. It shows what a bad parent the State is in the first place.

A young lad whom I supported recently was eligible for CAS but then he met a girl and they had a child, and then they excluded him from the scheme. Is that something that Ms Feeney comes up against much? It is nearly like he was being denied the same supports because he was developing his own family and it changed his relationship with CAS. I am wondering about young people's right to family life and them being excluded because their partner was not in care, they have had a child and they have changed the criteria on them.

Ms Karen Feeney

We were pleased in recent months to be part of a case management process where a young woman who had been in our youth service received a CAS allocation and she has since had a baby. This has become so unusual in our country that she has secure accommodation. She is a woman who has been in care. She has loads of potential. Having that secure base and whatever support she needs going forward, she will have it.

Senator Lynn Ruane

Does Ms Feeney find it different for young males?

Ms Karen Feeney

I have not encountered that yet. It is geared towards single people. Some of that flexibility will have to be worked out with local authorities.

CAS for care leavers is a limited scheme and, because we have the youth service threshold for the support needs, we are able to be a little elastic on it. I recognise that for the extension of CAS for care leavers, and potentially for young people who have not been formally in care but have had acute needs, there probably needs to be a dedicated support system to go with that as well. That is one of the tensions because it is just the housing without any support. We are choosing, as a voluntary organisation, to continue to provide that support but we have a little flexibility because we have this other youth service in place.

Senator Lynn Ruane

I have two more quick questions. Ms O'Hara mentioned the Scottish and Canadian models. I would love to know what specific parts of that model should be implemented with urgency here to be able to address some of the issues. Maybe someone can elaborate on the specialist support that they provide in respect of dual diagnosis. More information on that would be great.

Ms Aisling O'Hara

In terms of the models that I spoke about, the youth housing first model is what I attended last week. The basic principles are that every young person has a right to housing and that young people also have a right to housing without any preconditions.

Another important element of this model was a no-discharge policy into homeless services. Many people can get scared by hearing that but the whole point of the model is that placements may break down and there may be times when a new solution may need to be explored with a young people but that the service or the workers will stay with that young person no matter where he or she is until another solution can be found.

Another part of it is that there are no time limits. It is not like we have one or two years to sort this problem out but that there is no time limit. That is what makes this specific model that I am talking about so important and what makes it work.

There are many examples from Scotland, Canada and the UK where this modelling has worked. It is very simple. It is long-term housing for young people.

Chairman

Deputy Sherlock wanted to come back in. Then if there are any other questions, we will take them.

Deputy Sean Sherlock

I went to college in Galway. I always found the Galway people industrious and when it came to finding solutions to problems, that people came together.

Ms Karen Feeney

The mighty Corrib.

Deputy Sean Sherlock

The mighty Corrib unites them. I am fascinated that they have developed a model where all of the stakeholders are willing partners and they have been able to find accommodation and to have the wraparound supports. How could I get this service going in Cork, for instance, which is where I am from? I could see some challenges in breaking down the silos between all of the constituent partners that would be needed to come together on this. Although not insurmountable, these are challenges nonetheless. Have the Simon Community carried out research, either academic or their own, around the results and the follow-ons of individuals coming through the system? How they are getting on now, because I would love to see this model replicated? If I, as a public representative, could guide somebody into such a service, that would be meaningful for me instead of having to go through the usual frustrations that we experience as Deputies trying to advocate for our own people.

I would love to take their model. I would love to engage in the research that they have carried out, if any, and bring it to Cork, for instance, and say that here is a model and it works. It would force people to shake off their own preconceptions about young people who are presenting to them because often their experience is not a good one. Ms Feeney crystallised it for me perfectly in terms of the snakes and ladders. When somebody is vulnerable, it is easy for me to talk as I have the capacity to advocate for myself. Not everybody else does and they need those support. What is their perspective on how we could replicate this model and get the political buy-in for that? I would welcome their views on that. It is a big question and I am sorry for that.

Ms Karen Feeney

I have not forgotten the question about dual diagnosis.

This was a bottom-up initiative in Galway. The numbers began to creep up. Young people were presenting to emergency services and all the services decided to take action. It took one person to call the meeting to begin to explore the matter. It took a bit of time to discuss what would be the shape of this and whether we could find a building. Initially, we thought that we would make a CAS application but the local authority identified a group of apartments together.

The local authority renovated the apartments and, in turn, leased them to us. Section 10 provides initial staffing. There is also some funding from Tusla around that because a number of care placements break down when children reach 18 years of age.

As Galway Simon has evolved we have built a health and well-being team as part of our homeless services that are largely funded through social inclusion. We have an addiction counsellor on staff. We have had occupational therapy. There is a specialist service that tries to get people back to work and have social integration. Recently we have added a clinical psychologist to our team. There are now more options and ways to problem solve.

Dual diagnosis is still pretty weak and we do not have a highly evolved system. Addiction and mental health issues tend to be seen separately but we continue to advocate for dual diagnosis.

Mr. Wayne Stanley

UCC did research on our response to Covid. One of the things that was discovered was the level of collaboration so I think that the seeds of the process mentioned is there. The Simon Communities operate across the nation and Cork Simon would welcome an opportunity to engage.

Deputy Sean Sherlock

I would like to hear more about UCC.

Mr. Wayne Stanley

Joe Finnerty in UCC conducted Covid-specific research on different agencies. He spoke to front-line staff in the Simon Communities and service users. Some of the learnings were the client-centred approach, the collaboration that happened at that time and the success that drove it.

Deputy Sean Sherlock

Can I presume that Mr. Finnerty would be more than familiar with the model in Galway?

Mr. Wayne Stanley

Mr. Finnerty's research was more focused on emergency services but child services were part of it, yes.

Chairman

Does the delegation wish to comment? Is there an issue that they feel they did not get a chance to get back to in terms of the questions?

Ms Karen Feeney

We intend to commission academic research, but from our own statistics and record keeping we can see that only four young people who have been through this service have had to go back to emergency accommodation in all of the six years that the service has been in existence. If placements break down then one must find an alternative. Even if one has to be out one cannot stay in a unit with the person but a key worker will work with him or her to find an alternative. Commitment is very important to young people because one will be tested on that for sure.

Chairman

A point has been made about prevention. It is obvious that the system works really well and I agree with the desire to have that replicated. It can be frustrating in here at times when one sees solutions yet realise that no matter what question one asks one will be told that there is enough money for housing or the Government will throw any amount of money at the problem. However, here we have a perfect solution that is not being rolled out to other parts of the country. Today's meeting in public session has afforded us a great opportunity to hear people's views.

Mr. Wayne Stanley

There is a growing sense of urgency. One of things that we are seeing with the increase in homelessness, which was alluded to by Ms Feeney, is the fact that young people are coming in whereas before they might have been stuck in a youth hostel. Now, they have been rough sleeping and they are presenting to us.

Chairman

Yes.

Mr. Wayne Stanley

Part of the reason we are seeing an increase in youth homelessness is as follows. We mentioned in our report that youth homelessness is often hidden because their social network tends to have greater flexibility. It is easier to sleep on somebody's couch if one is a single woman or man. It is easier for one's friends to find space if they are not in the same space as they may be later on in their lives so there is more capacity for people to move in and out of homelessness. In the current crisis, that space is contracting so there is a rapidly increasing urgency to address youth homelessness.

Ms Aisling O'Hara

Reflecting on what Mr. Stanley said about urgency, I can give a live case example. Last week, I had a total emergency case of a young girl in her leaving certificate year who experienced homelessness because she had absolutely nowhere to go. We were able to support her to provide a solution but I have received an increasing number of referrals as young people find themselves having to sleep in their cars or sleep out as they have absolutely nowhere to go. At the moment the beds in Galway Simon are full and we do not have emergency accommodation for young people specifically. As the committee members will all know, there are no emergency beds nationally. Increasingly, we are seeing young people having absolutely nowhere to go. Galway Simon was in the very lucky position of being able to support the girl I mentioned but had we not had a bed for her then I do not know what type of solution we could have looked at.

Chairman

I thank the delegation for a really interesting session. We appreciate this opportunity to discuss these matters. Do the members agree that the committee publishes the opening statement on our website? Agreed.

I propose that we suspend the meeting for a few minutes to prepare for session 2 of this meeting.

Sitting suspended at 4.07 p.m. and resumed at 4.15 p.m.

Chairman

Items for consideration in this session are as follows: alternative aftercare services for young adults; the performance of Tusla based on the 2021 annual report; and foster care and HIQA compliance and challenges. We are joined by Tusla representatives today - Mr. Bernard Gloster; chief executive officer; Ms Kate Duggan, national director, services and integration; Mr. Pat Smyth, national director, finance and corporate services; and Ms Clare Murphy, regional chief officer. I believe we have two guests joining us online through Microsoft Teams as well - Ms Rosarii Mannion, director of people and change and Dr. Anthony O’Leary, director of quality and regulation. The representatives are all very welcome.

In advance of inviting our guests to deliver their opening statement, I advise them of the following in respect of parliamentary privilege. Witnesses who are participating from within the committee room are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. If, therefore, their statements are potentially defamatory in respect of an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks and it is imperative they comply with any such direction. In the case of witnesses appearing virtually before the committee, there is uncertainty as to whether parliamentary privilege would apply to their evidence from a location outside of the parliamentary precincts of Leinster House. If, therefore, they are directed by me to cease giving evidence on a matter, it is imperative they comply with any such direction.

I now invite Mr. Gloster to give his opening statement and then we will follow up with questions and answers.

Mr. Bernard Gloster

I thank the Chair and members of the committee in the room and online.

Prior to the commencement of today's hearing, and subsequent to submission of my opening statement, I want to take this opportunity on behalf of the Child and Family Agency to record our sincere sympathy to those bereaved in the harrowing tragedy in Creeslough in Donegal. Our staff and funded partners have many skillsets including psychological and social support capacity. They have been very much present with other State agencies over the weekend and this will continue for as long as required. All resources at our disposal and any additional resources required by our team there will be made available. The collective trauma of the community will not be known for a time to come and we assure them as a State agency in their midst that we stand in solidarity with them ready to assist them in any way necessary into the future.

I want to express my thanks to the committee members for their kind invitation to appear before them today. I am joined in the committee room by my colleagues, Ms Kate Duggan, Mr. Pat Smyth and Ms Clare Murphy, assisted by Ms Niamh Duddy, my business manager. Other colleagues are online to assist should questions arise. In the three matters covered in the committee's invitation, and recognising there are many other dimensions to our work, I want to make the following opening remarks.

Since I last appeared before the committee in May, the agency has published the annual report in respect of 2021. The year 2021 was again underscored by the effects of the pandemic on Irish society and as a critical service provider of front-line essential services for children and families, the agency’s core focus was to ensure the continued delivery of these essential services. In addition to the ongoing impact of the pandemic, Tusla in 2021 was also severely impacted by the cyberattack on the HSE ICT network. The agency’s response required a large-scale operation.

Against the backdrop of these challenges for the agency, the demand for services and support for children and families continued to increase during that year. In addition to the increased referrals the agency also continued to provide all of its other statutory services in adoption, domestic sexual and gender-based violence, education welfare and support, regulation of early years services, and a whole range of family support services. During the pandemic, we were able to ensure continuity of support for care leavers, particularly those who at the time could have had difficulty because of age or access to education supports at the height of lockdowns. That period has again highlighted for us the many needs and challenges for care leavers and also the possibilities there are for more improvements. The agency has made significant change and progress despite the challenges of the past two years. New management and leadership at national and regional level is now established. This means the agency is in a stronger position to deal with the challenges that are to be expected in statutory social services.

In 2021, the agency managed 73,069 referrals to child protection and welfare services. There were 5,863 children in care at the end of 2021, 90% of whom were in foster care, while 23,807 children received a family support service in 2021. A total of 3,059 young adults were in receipt of aftercare services at the end of 2021. In the academic year running into 2021 our education support service worked with over 5,500 children. Over 4,000 early years services and a range of other specialist activities for children were regulated by Tusla on behalf of the State.

The second item on today's agenda is foster care compliance. When I last appeared before the committee, I addressed several aspects of foster care and associated issues, resulting in a very productive engagement with members. At that time, I advised the committee that Tusla was involved in developing its own overarching strategic plans for three elements of alternative care, that is, residential care, foster care and aftercare. In my earlier appearance I provided the committee with the plan for residential care and committed to foster care being next.

Since that time and following extensive engagement, the board of the agency has now approved the foster care plan which I shared in recent days with members. Implementing this ambitious plan will require support and decisions beyond the authority of Tusla. I welcome the commitment of the Minister to actively supporting our efforts to improve foster care services for both the children and their carers. Specifically in respect of compliance I advise members that our foster care services are inspected by HIQA in addition to our own internal governance systems. Every effort is made to ensure that there is an appropriate level of attention to improving quality and increasing the oversight on important issues such as safeguarding. HIQA has conducted successive themed inspections of foster care services and this has been essential in driving improvements.

When we consider the totality of inspection reports in foster care since 2019, the improvement is in the order of a 34% increase in the number of compliant or substantially compliant findings measured against the HIQA standards. The 34% increase relates to a Tusla aggregate of all HIQA foster care reports. HIQA’s own published overview reports clearly point to improvements and also some shortcomings still to be addressed. I am conscious that all of this noted, there remain challenges in some of our local areas. I assure members that there is a very strong focus on supporting those areas to reach compliance and this is part of the consistency challenge that the agency faces. I am satisfied that where HIQA has identified deficits, we have developed plans for improvement and are taking steps to mitigate risks. I want to take this opportunity to thank the many people who continue to put themselves forward as foster carers in what is an enormously selfless endeavour. They, along with our dedicated staff, are what will ultimately ensure the quality of care for children.

On the issue of aftercare, I understand the committee raised this matter on foot of communication from the Simon Communities. As noted earlier, having completed multi-annual improvement plans for residential care and foster care we are now in the consultation phase for similar in aftercare. I look forward to this being finalised by January 2023. In the meantime, members should note that 3,045 young people and adults up to 22 years of age, inclusive, were in receipt of aftercare services at the end of quarter 2 of 2022. This is an increase of 10% from the end of 2019. Almost half of those 18 to 22-year-olds in receipt of aftercare services at the end of quarter 2 had remained living with their carers, with a further smaller number returning home. Approximately 76% of 18 to 22-year-olds in receipt of aftercare services at the end of quarter 2 of 2022 were in education or training.

Members should also note that 82% of all young adults in receipt of aftercare services at the end of quarter 2 of 2022 had an aftercare plan. A full 92% of those with an aftercare plan were assessed as needing an aftercare worker and of these, 91% had an aftercare worker at the end of quarter 2. There were 198 young adults awaiting an aftercare worker at that time. However, the 198 awaiting an aftercare worker received attention from an aftercare manager. I want to assure the committee of our continued efforts to assign aftercare workers to those young people who are in need of them. All areas also operate a drop-in service and for the first six months of 2022 a total of 4,500 entries were recorded on the registers for drop-in services. There remain many challenges for care leavers and young adults who have left care. Among those challenges are the issues of sustainable accommodation and adequate mental health supports. We will continue to work with all other State agencies to advocate for improvements for young people leaving care.

That concludes my opening remarks. I am happy, together with my colleagues, to assist the committee with any questions arising.

Chairman

Thank you very much, Mr. Gloster. We will go straight to questions, starting with Senator Ruane. She will be followed by Deputies Costello, Sherlock, Cairns and Creed.

Senator Lynn Ruane

I thank Mr. Gloster for his statement. I have lots of questions but will not have time to put them all to our guests. Some of my questions seek clarification to help me understand a number of things. Sometimes when one is supporting people or dealing with specific cases it can be unclear whether something is a policy, a statutory requirement or something else. Let us take the example of a person who is 18 and is due to leave foster care, care outside the home or kin care. The householder providing the care says that the young person, who may be about to start a post-leaving certificate course, can stay but that arrangement breaks down and the young person leaves at 19. If the person does not take up aftercare between 18 and 19, does he or she lose the opportunity to take up accommodation or certain aftercare supports and services? What happens in those circumstances? I came across this recently and I did not know why that would happen.

The next issue I want to raise is the financial support which, as we know, only continues beyond the age of 21 if the person is in full-time education. Some people will not be able for that in that moment but may be able for it later on, as a mature student. They could be like myself and want to go to college in their late 20s when they feel safer and their head is a bit clearer. Does Tusla believe that policy should be revised? People who are not in education may possibly need more support than people who are, in terms of where they are in their lives. Is there a suggestion here of the deserving versus the undeserving poor or care leaver? The Shared Vision, Next Steps document and youth work legislation refer to those in the 18 to 24 age bracket. Should we consider continuing with payments and with foster care placements until the age of 24? What do the Tusla representatives think of that?

Are there specialised supports for asylum-seeking young people who are leaving care? They will often be in a more precarious position than others in terms of family connections and community ties. In relation to performance, a key objective outlined in Tusla's annual report is a consistent response across all services but in 2021 just 62% of cases awaiting allocation were active. What steps are being taken to address that backlog?

Mr. Bernard Gloster

I thank Senator Ruane for her questions. I will let Ms Duggan deal with the questions around 18 to 19-year-olds and being able to access financial support if they do not access it at the start.

From a policy perspective there are two things that are helpful. First, I agree with what is implied in the Senator's question, that is, that there needs to be a more adaptable and flexible approach to how we apply aftercare supports, as opposed to the traditionally rigid view involving full-time education and so on. We have started to do that now and are funding an organisation called Way 2 Work which works with young people around their talents and skills and the possibility of apprenticeships. They have major programmes going on in Dublin, Cork and Limerick at the moment and those involved in those programmes can get aftercare supports. They do not have to be in formal education but we have a way to go with that.

The second part or the flip side of that, which is something that carers and social workers have told us, is that we have to exercise some degree of caution.

When young people leave care at 18 and wish to leave care, we should try to support them to do that but not simply open up full access to a full aftercare allowance when they are not involved in any structured element of their lives because that type of access to that kind of money can be quite destructive when you are still at that fairly tender age. It is a balancing piece. I agree with the broad thrust of the question that there needs to be a much broader review than the limitations from where it came. Ms Duggan and Ms Murphy might give a sense of the point of 18- to 19-year-olds and education.

Ms Kate Duggan

In terms of the legal basis, young people are entitled to the aftercare service. It is important that it is not just matter of the financial supports and that there is a much wider service to support them to access therapeutic services and housing if they have been in the care of the State for more than 12 months between the ages of 13 and 18. Those are the broad parameters we have to work with under the Child Care (Amendment) Act 2015. It is important that young people who have been known to us or who have been in care are entitled to access their aftercare support services, apart from the allowance. In the case the Senator has described, if that young person has been in care, has dropped out of education or has deferred, he or she can access education until he or she is 19 years old, and the young person is still entitled to the same supports and services.

Senator Lynn Ruane

In relation to-----

Mr. Bernard Gloster

The point on consistency.

Senator Lynn Ruane

Yes.

Mr. Bernard Gloster

Essentially, the biggest challenge for us in the agency is consistency, because we have many good practices and approaches in different counties, and it is a matter of the translation of that across the whole system. The overall improvement measured by HIQA and assessed as “compliant” and “substantially compliant” against the standards in child protection, residential care and foster care suggests to us we are moving in the right direction in terms of consistency. We are now up to up to approximately 81% compliant in that. This is a quite significant rating but it is nothing to be complacent about.

Where consistency is perhaps harder and a challenge for us, particularly on the unallocated cases, and we have made some improvements on the higher priority cases, is not just shared learning throughout the country but also, and this has been well rehearsed in this committee and in other forums I have been in, the issue of staff, demand on staffing, staff turnover and availability of staff. This continues to present us with a challenge and that is the route. If the workforce is not consistent, you are constantly trying to catch up with the new workforce to bring them on board. It is a work in progress. I am not going to say it is perfect because it is not.

Ms Kate Duggan

I will go back to the question of what we call separated children or separated young people seeking international protection. To give an updated context, to date, 501 separated young people seeking international protection have presented to Tusla. Some 224 of those were from Ukraine. We are seeing an increase not only in the numbers fleeing war in Ukraine but also in the wider cohorts coming from a number of different countries. Today, 174 of those young people are in placement and, of those, 65 are from Ukraine. The same provisions within the Act apply in that, if they are there under section 5, the provision of accommodation, they are not then entitled to the aftercare allowance. We certainly would give them aftercare supports, but they would then be entitled to the normal social protection allowances. What is important is the amount of work we are doing on reunification, because that is the role Tusla has, together with our colleagues in the Department of Justice, to support those young people to reunify with their families.

Senator Lynn Ruane

Was that was a bit of nod to reunification Bill, so that we can bring family members over for those children?

Ms Kate Duggan

Yes.

Mr. Bernard Gloster

Notwithstanding all the considerations border authorities and immigration functions must have, and rightly so, we have to be true to our primary function, which would always tell us that, where children can be reunited with their families, that is the best possible course of action.

Deputy Patrick Costello

I was interested to hear Tusla speak about providing the full allowance to somebody who might be in a slightly more chaotic position. I contrast that with Wales, which has begun a trial or pilot for a universal basic income for all care leavers, regardless of their situation. There can be high-quality aftercare supports if a young person is leaving care in education and training. It is often those who are the most vulnerable and the most needy who struggle either to get into or maintain a place or who just are not ready for education, but given the way things are set up, they are often ones not getting as high a level of service. The Welsh experiment is an interesting one we should be looking at here. I appreciate the challenges of some of that.

I am glad to hear Tusla say, and I echo what Senator Ruane said, that it has to be asked how many 26-, 27-, 28- or 29-year-olds in the general population are still at home and still getting support from their parents. In a situation where the State, through Tusla, is the corporate parent, we should be looking at not just the challenges presenting in terms of housing supply but at extending that upper age limit for aftercare generally. I appreciate that may not be entirely in Tusla’s gift and we should be talking to the Minister about that, but certainly, based on the witnesses' comments, it sounds as though Tusla is supportive of that. For me, the challenge is what more we can do for those young people who are struggling, who are perhaps more chaotic or who have had a more difficult journey through care and are struggling to engage with aftercare. There are many sources looking at that.

One of the other issues I would look at is in terms of performance. I know I have spoken before about demand, anticipation and workforce planning, and I underline the need for that, because if we can do that and publish it, it will give us a yardstick against which to measure our performance and it can be very useful. It also, in terms of recruitment, puts it up to the Minister and to the universities about whether we are delivering enough trained social workers. One of the questions, and I do not know whether the witnesses can shed any light on this, is whether we are training enough social workers. If we are not, then why not? Is it because of a lack of demand or a lack of places? Where is the bottleneck there?

I have spoken quite a lot about foster care. We had a positive engagement with some stakeholders, and I am sure the representatives from Tusla were watching, who all clearly identified the need to do more. The strategy the Tusla representatives spoke about is welcome but there were other things identified that could be done. Outside of the strategy and in response to that session, what will Tusla be taking on board and committing to deliver in the coming years?

Mr. Bernard Gloster

I thank the Deputy. That is very clear, and I do not disagree with his observation one bit about the Welsh approach. My earlier comments would not be to say that I think any care leaver should be without support. I was simply talking about the quantum of the allowance in somebody's life at a time where there may be chaos. It has had a destructive effect as well as a helpful effect. However, in the main, I share the Deputy’s view. To put it clearly on the record, I do think 23 and 24 are too young to stop support, considering that young people who have come through the care system have not even come through all of what might considered to be the normal range of supports and attachments in life, and therefore it is well beyond that. I take most of my reference points from meeting with care leavers such as Empowering People in Care, EPIC, the Irish Aftercare Network and others and I listen carefully to what they say. Ultimately, they will be the experts who will shape the policy I have spoken about that we will be rewriting between now and Christmas. To be fair to the Minister, he has been very open to and welcoming of that. He genuinely has.

There is a direct correlation between workforce planning and improved performance. We now have a robust people strategy. However, as to the Deputy’s question whether we are producing enough social workers, the answer is, “No, we are not”. Why not? There has been a traditional base of the development of programmes in the universities. I recently met with the Secretary General of the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science. The chair of Tusla has also met with the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science. The Secretary General of the Department has moved on certain matters to try to progress them. I am open to a wide range of options that will develop social work capacity and supply into the future right across our personal social services, and not just Tusla. We have to be open to things like apprenticeship models, sponsorship models and others.

If we simply continue to produce the number we are producing then myself and my many successors, and the successors of Deputy Costello, will be speaking about the shortage of social workers in Ireland. We have to change the supply pattern. We also need to change the methodology so we have multidisciplinary teams led by social workers in response to children. We must resource social workers with other key resources that can help them with different approaches to caseloads and case types. This year we are employing 20 speech and language and occupational therapists to work exclusively with children in care teams. This will make a difference to what social workers can do for children. It will make a difference to their case management.

On the foster care plan I will ask Ms Duggan to speak on what she is prioritising for 2023. I have heard foster carers categorically and loudly and clearly in recent weeks on some of their dissatisfaction. We have heard this and she has spoken to several hundred of them. There are improvements we can make immediately. Perhaps she will give a sense of what we have prioritised coming into 2023.

Ms Kate Duggan

We have more than 500 stakeholders, including colleagues in EPIC, the Irish Aftercare Network and all of the advocacy agencies. The need for support came across very strongly in the forum. This is not just financial support from Tusla but other supports such as access to therapeutic services and better training. It is about better communication. Foster carers need more robust communication. They need to feel they are partners in the approach to care planning for the children in their care. It comes back to the need for consistency in how they access services and the types of services and supports they can get. In the coming years we are on course to implement more than 29 recommendations of the plan. They are very much about our vision of ensuring that 90% of children remain in foster care. More than this, it is looking at new models. We have looked at models in Wales, Scotland, Canada and Australia with regard to how we support foster care places, in particular those where foster carers are finding it difficult to continue to support and where young people in foster care are finding it difficult to remain in placements. We are looking at consistency in service provision in all of our business supports to make it much easier for foster carers to receive a consistent support service. It is an ambitious plan but we are committed to implementing all of these recommendations. These recommendations will go a long way to dealing with the issues that have been raised.

Deputy Sean Sherlock

I welcome our guests. I want to speak about foster carers. I received correspondence from a foster carer who is also a social worker. She wrote to me in a private capacity. In her letter she states her worry is that many foster carers will not be able to continue to do what they do and that it will not be affordable for people to consider becoming foster carers, especially as fostering impacts on a carer's ability to be available for other paid work. She has layered much more into the letter but this is the kernel of it for me.

Mr. Gloster has stated that Tusla's strategic plan on foster care services was approved by the Tusla board on Friday, 30 September 2022. I will reflect some of what I have heard from foster carers about the letter issued to them. They found the letter extremely patronising. It is important that Tusla hears this because it is what I have been hearing from foster carers. They engaged in what they thought was a meaningful process after which one of the recommendations was an increase in allowances and financial and other supports. This is highlighted in the letter from Tusla to them. Mr. Gloster and Ms Duggan said they heard loud and clear what the foster carers said. The budget came after this. All that arose for foster carers from the budgetary process, in which I assume Tusla was directly involved with its parent Department and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, was an allowance of €325 or €350. Did Tusla, through its parent Department, make a specific recommendation that the allowances to foster carers should be increased in budget 2023?

Mr. Bernard Gloster

In July, as part of drafting the foster care plan and the consultation ahead of the plan, we engaged with the Department. We communicated to the Department and had many discussions with it, to be fair, on our very clear view that the foster care allowance needed to be increased.

Deputy Sean Sherlock

Are copies of this correspondence available?

Mr. Bernard Gloster

I am not sure whether it was correspondence or just at meetings. There is no difficulty with sharing whatever is there. The Deputy knows me well enough to know that now.

Deputy Sean Sherlock

Yes, I do.

Mr. Bernard Gloster

I have no difficulty saying we advocate, have advocated and will continue to advocate for a review of the foster care allowance as part of an overall approach to foster care. There are non-monetary dimensions that are important for us and we are pursuing them. Ultimately, the determination of a fundamental or permanent change to the allowance is something on which Tusla must engage with the Department.

Deputy Sean Sherlock

I thank Mr. Gloster. If I understand him correctly he is saying that as an organisation Tusla advocated through the budgetary process with the Department for an increase in allowances.

Mr. Bernard Gloster

Yes.

Deputy Sean Sherlock

If there were some evidence of this it would assist me, and perhaps the committee, in advocating for those foster carers. If this is the case and we have the proof of it, we can ask where the Department was in its engagement with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. We can ask why we have been left with a situation whereby foster carers feel extremely patronised by the fact the allowance was a paltry sum by any objective analysis. The great job they do is acknowledged in the language that is used but concrete supports are not forthcoming in real terms. I acknowledge there is a strategic plan but I am not sure whether, following what happened with the budget, foster carers now have confidence in that. There is a political element to this. There needs to be engagement with Government parties on the non-delivery of supports. If it is the case that Tusla has actively advocated then, I say "fair play" to it. This must be acknowledged and there is a line of questioning that must be pursued with the Minister.

What is happening with Positive Care Ireland? Has it been wound down? Is it still in existence? What is its status?

Mr. Bernard Gloster

I was not expecting to answer questions on Positive Care Ireland today. I was at the previous meeting.

Deputy Sean Sherlock

It is very much in keeping with the spirit of-----

Mr. Bernard Gloster

I do not dispute that.

Deputy Sean Sherlock

It is about alternative aftercare services for all young adults who require the services.

Mr. Bernard Gloster

It is about the aftercare service. I am happy to answer the question without the papers in front of me. I addressed the committee in May on the matter. Positive Care Ireland notified us of its intention to dispose of its interest in its business. Equally, it engaged in a process in which it sought to secure the sale or transfer of the company to another provider. A provider engaged with Positive Care Ireland and successfully negotiated whatever terms it did. The provider has successfully engaged with Tusla and registered as a provider with it. I gave an undertaking to the Deputy at the time, when he made active and appropriate representation, and I gave an undertaking to the committee. Our sole focus at the time were the children who were in care in the Positive Care Ireland houses. Our hope now is that the new provider, who is in our open tender process, will be able to expand the offering to other children and young people. Our regulations service and our operational service are actively engaged with the provider. It is challenging of course, as it is for every provider, but I believe it is working quite well.

Deputy Sean Sherlock

I thank Mr. Gloster.

Chairman

In fairness to Mr. Gloster and Tusla, there was a session on this in May. He is always open to answering questions that may not be on the agenda.

Deputy Sean Sherlock

I thank the Chair for her guidance on this and I respect the fact it was previously addressed by the committee. I just wanted the most up-to-date information as per October of this year.

Chairman

No problem.

Deputy Holly Cairns

I thank the witnesses for coming before the committee.

Our engagement on the foster care system has highlighted insufficient resources and supports for foster carers, as outlined by Deputy Sherlock. This puts carers under severe pressure especially when the child or young person has high levels of need. It is great to hear that Tusla was advocating for an increase in the allowance in the budget, not just for all of the obvious reasons such as better outcomes for children, but it makes budgetary sense when we know that it costs €6,000 to put somebody into residential care. I am curious to know if there is a figure for how much we have spent on that.

Mr. Bernard Gloster

How much was spent on what?

Deputy Holly Cairns

On residential care rather than children being in foster care.

Mr. Bernard Gloster

Yes, of course.

Deputy Holly Cairns

In addition, is it the case that if someone in foster care has high additional needs, his or her foster family cannot pay privately for an assessment of need? I think that is based on the fact that the young person is technically in the care of Tusla rather than the family, so he or she must wait on the list even if the foster family wants to get a private assessment. I am curious to know what is the case with that.

Another issue we spoke about previously is not getting the back-to-school allowance when a child is in foster care. That seems like an outrageous reality at the moment.

Another main point that was raised in the discussion on foster care is the importance of a consistent key worker in a young person's life. That aligns with evidence from the Simon Communities of Ireland today with particular reference to young people in the foster care process. What measures are being taken by Tusla to ensure children in foster care have access to the same support workers, as much as is viable?

The final issue I wish to raise concerns family resource centres, FRCs. They are a vital support service for vulnerable groups across the country. We are lucky to have so many of them, but they are running on threadbare budgets. The centres in Bandon and Skibbereen in my constituency are in desperate need of permanent locations. From a strategic point of view, what is Tusla going to do to fund and ensure the development of FRCs, which are such an integral part of the support for people in the medium and long term? Those bodies are entirely dependent on funding from Tusla. I am not aware of whether Tusla is dealing with them. Some FRCs are in HSE-owned buildings and others are not. I do not know how to help or support groups that need a permanent home.

Mr. Bernard Gloster

The consistent support worker piece is something Ms Murphy talked about in terms of what we try to do. It is difficult when there is a high staff turnover.

On the assessment of need, I want to be very careful not to stray across the definition of "assessment of need" as intended under the Disability Act. I know that has been a subject of significant debate in this committee with my colleagues in the HSE. In the general sense, if somebody in a care placement has a pressing need for a particular type of assessment that is not available publicly or in a timely way, we try to support that and help to secure it privately. I would be the first to say to the Deputy that I do not believe that is consistent across the country. That is part of what we are now trying to change so that the experience is the same for every foster carer.

Deputy Holly Cairns

Is it possible for foster carers to pay for it themselves if they want?

Mr. Bernard Gloster

Yes, it has to be consented to.

Deputy Holly Cairns

By Tulsa?

Mr. Bernard Gloster

Yes.

Deputy Patrick Costello

I wish to make a point to get clarity. Does the agency still need to consent even if the foster carer has received enhanced rights?

Mr. Bernard Gloster

I will perhaps let Ms Murphy come back on that in a moment because I do not want to cut across the professional assessment piece. What I am saying is that, in general, if there is general agreement that a child needs an assessment of need in the broadest definition of that phrase and it is very clear that he or she cannot wait on the public list or for other availability, we will assist foster carers and children to secure that, but I would not say that is consistent in the way we would want it to be.

Deputy Holly Cairns

How is that even assessed? If there is a clear need, and it needs to be done in a timely fashion, another assessment would be needed.

Mr. Bernard Gloster

Yes, and that is the problem. We try to rely on what the professionals in the case say as well. There can be times when there are conflicting views between all of the people involved on what is the best approach to the child's needs.

I spoke with the Minister only two weeks ago about FRCs. He is considering if it is possible for 2024 to look at another round of the FRC programme. In the meantime, we continue to fund them. This year, we increased the core funding by 4%, which is what was available to us to do that. There are other agencies that also fund them as well, so it can be a mixed bag, depending on where they operate. In some places the local authority funds them and in other places the HSE funds them. We are committed to FRCs because they take a very collective and holistic approach to supporting people in communities.

Deputy Holly Cairns

What would an FRC do to secure a permanent location? What is the process? Is that core funding, rather than capital funding?

Mr. Bernard Gloster

Many FRCs get core funding from Tusla, usually to cover the cost of the manager and administrative support for the centre.

Deputy Holly Cairns

Does Tusla provide any capital funding?

Mr. Bernard Gloster

Generally, the FRCs do not get capital funding from us. They might get very small, minor grants but capital funding specific to FRCs is not available. Many of them grew up out of local initiatives and might have started in a local authority building, if one was available. What I generally try to do with the family resource programme is to encourage a multi-agency approach in the State. If we put up the money to staff the FRC, I would also have a clear expectation that organisations such as the local authority, the HSE, and the Department of Social Protection would consider what possibilities they have to support it because such centres are supposed to be multi-agency and multifactorial. They are not just in the children and family space. There are no easy answers to the question on capital funding. I have not personally heard of an FRC that is on the brink.

Deputy Holly Cairns

I could tell Mr. Gloster about two. I accept the point about there being multi-agency responsibility, but ultimately that means no one is responsible. That is the problem. One of the FRCs has had to move location six times in a short period. The manager, who Mr. Gloster mentioned is funded by Tusla, has brought the stuff into their own home while looking for another property. The service has been disrupted. The centre is in a perfect location now but it can only get a one-year lease every time.

Mr. Bernard Gloster

I would be very happy to hear from Deputy Cairns on the individual circumstances and I will see if we can assist. I want to be clear, as I do not want to raise expectations, that the funding, including capital funding, of FRCs is a much bigger piece than for Tusla itself. It is important to say that.

In our recent discussions with the Minister, he was very committed to seeing if he could unplug the piece concerning the back-to-school allowance.

I know there has been much criticism of the foster carer's allowance recently. I am sorry to hear that people are communicating to Deputy Sherlock that they felt patronised in some way. The foster care allowance is approximately €350 or €325 depending on the age of the child. It also comes with the proviso that it is totally tax free and it is not assessable as means for any other social welfare payment. It is separate to considerations on children's allowance and other issues. There were considerations built into it at the time but time has moved on and we need to review it and look at it in a different way. As I outlined, we fully support that.

I will ask Ms Murphy to comment on the consistency of support workers, and also the issue of the assessment of need consent raised by Deputy Costello.

Ms Clare Murphy

The first thing I would say about consistency is that it is our wish that every single foster carer would have what we call a link social worker, which is an allocated social worker to offer them support. Unfortunately, due to recruitment and retention issues, that is not always possible. In scenarios like that, we try never to have what we call a dual unallocated case. If a social worker is allocated to a child, as a temporary measure, we ask the social worker to support the foster carer until such time as we can allocate a social worker. It is our wish to have a social worker - what we call a link worker - but it is not always possible. Sometimes we can get a team leader, who is the manager, to offer support.

Regarding enhanced rights and the assessment, in a scenario where a foster carer is awarded enhanced rights and wants an assessment with which Tusla is in agreement about providing, I am not sure why Tusla would not have funded it. I do not understand what the particular issue is because if a foster carer has enhanced rights, consent is not an issue. What were the circumstances in the case the Deputy raises?

Deputy Holly Cairns

My question was not about enhanced rights.

Ms Clare Murphy

I am sorry.

Deputy Patrick Costello

I interrupted with a follow-on question that might have confused the issue. I apologise to Deputy Cairns.

Deputy Holly Cairns

The question I asked is whether a foster carer can pay privately for somebody who is in foster care where the family feel or know they need an assessment of needs.

We know the waiting lists are outrageously long for that assessment. If a family wants to pay privately for an assessment of need, I am told they cannot because they are not the guardian; Tusla is. Ms Murphy says it is possible if it is in agreement with Tusla, but what about the scenario in which Tusla does not agree that an assessment should be made?

Ms Kate Duggan

No, we do not.

Deputy Holly Cairns

So there is never an issue; Tusla always gives approval.

Ms Clare Murphy

There should not be an issue.

Ms Kate Duggan

It comes back to inconsistency. If the Deputy is aware of such an issue, I ask that she bring it to our attention.

Ms Clare Murphy

Yes, we would need to follow up on that.

Ms Kate Duggan

The point at which we want to reach is that when the need for either an assessment or an intervention is an identified as part of a child's overall care plan, Tusla should fund that consistently in the same way across the service. When we were before the committee last time, we spoke about the development of our therapeutic services. We have just moved to a point whereby five of our six regional therapeutic co-ordinators will look at bringing consistently to how therapy provision and the assessment of need is undertaken in respect of young people in foster care. That should bring consistency and clarity to the process. If there is an issue, I ask the Deputy to bring it to our attention offline.

Mr. Bernard Gloster

On the private costs, Mr. Smyth will provide the three costs of private residential care, private foster care and public care.

Mr. Pat Smyth

I will go a bit wider. The statutory amount we paid out on foster care last year was €86 million, which was for all kids under 18 years. For aftercare, we paid out €27 million, an increase of approximately €2.5 million on the previous year, which has been an increasing trend in recent years. On other care costs, which include adoption, etc., we paid out approximately €8 million. We paid a total of €121 million in statutory care last year. In addition, we had private foster care provision with approximately 500 children in the care of private care or managed through private foster carers, to whom we paid out just under €25 million. In total, between the statutory payments for foster care, aftercare and independent or private foster carers, the figure amounts to roughly €145 million. The Deputy raised another question about private residential.

Deputy Holly Cairns

Yes. We talked about the need to increase the payment for foster carers. For one thing, there is a rising cost of living and there has not been an increase in the payment in a long time. In the context of the percentage of children in foster care is going down and the percentage of those going into residential care is rising, the cost to be in residential care is €6,000 versus the small payment to be in foster care. What is the cost of having a child in residential care versus the cost of having a child in a foster family? It is being pushed for them to do this on a budget, and we know it makes sense for better outcomes for children, but from a budgetary perspective, it costs ridiculously more to have a child in residential care instead. Does it not make budgetary sense for the Government to increase the pay for foster families? I do not understand.

Mr. Pat Smyth

I will answer that in a straightforward way. The cost of a child in residential care, be it private or in our services, is approximately €7,000 per week. The complexity of care-----

Deputy Holly Cairns

We are paying €121 million for children in the different types of foster care. How much would it cost to have them in private residential care?

Mr. Pat Smyth

It would cost €7,000 per week. Approximately €350,000 would cover the cost of one child in a residential placement for one year. That is a different scenario from a child in a normal foster care placement and the numbers reflect that. As was said earlier, 90% of our kids are in standard foster care arrangements. The 10% of children who are in other arrangements have more complex needs. It is not done on a straightforward money basis and we have never argued that it is on a one-for-one money basis, but I take the Deputy's point in that the cost to the State of children in foster care is much lower than kids in residential care.

Deputy Holly Cairns

The percentage went from 93% to 90%, which I thought may be because people were leaving on account of the pay being so low.

Mr. Bernard Gloster

To be fair, there are three issues that pivot around the Deputy's question. She is correct in that the minimum cost of having a child in residential care is between €6,000 and €7,000 per week. There are some exceptional cases, which we call special emergency arrangements, that could run up to €24,000 per week in some cases. It is important to be on the level about that. The capitation rate for the provider of private foster care is approximately €1,200 per week. The foster parents still get the same amount whether it is public or private, but the cost to the State is approximately €1,200 per week, and then there is the cost to the State of public foster care.

I am sure Deputy Costello with his professional background will understand this but part of the difficulty is that it is not a zero-sum game, and I would not want to reduce the narrative to that. Apart from retaining foster carers or, indeed, residential care settings, we are increasingly seeing a different and complex context from which some children coming into State care present. A small number will require increasingly intensive services that come at an enormous cost. The answer to that, as I recently said in a media interview, is not simply in Tusla.

Chairman

I have come across the issue raised by Deputy Cairns with foster families saying they would like to pay for an assessment of need or occupational therapy but they are being told they cannot do so. I am in the Carlow-Kilkenny constituency and Deputy Cairns is in Cork so there must be an issue. It is good that it has been raised, and we will leave it with the representatives. I have come across this recently.

Deputy Jennifer Murnane O'Connor

Many of my questions have been answered. I am from the Carlow-Kilkenny constituency, as is the Chair. How many social workers are there in counties Carlow and Kilkenny? The pressure for social workers, because we need so many more, has become a significant issue that needs to be addressed.

The foster care allowance rate of €325 for a child under 12 and €352 for a child over 12 has not risen since 2009. Private foster care, about which I was speaking to the Taoiseach, costs up to €7,000. I have spoken to foster mothers recently about their issues and I have to give them credit. We all listen to "Talk to Joe" on "Liveline". The amount of information I got while driving to Dublin was another factor that brought this issue home to me. Foster mothers did not say it to me, and I have to be politically correct in this, but I felt from speaking to them there was a fear there that if they were to say too much, they could lose their children. That was a concern for me and it really worried me. I recall thinking that they were not saying it, yet I could sense a fear there. Some said that when they have looked for money for special food, beds or school assistance, they were told they would not receive it, but this beats all.

One lady looked for an occupational therapist privately, because the waiting list was so long, and she got a quote for one. The next thing, the social worker came back to her and told her to get three quotes, which meant she had to look into bordering counties such as Wicklow and other areas. That is unacceptable and must be called to a halt. She got the price for an occupational therapist, but then they looked for two more quotes. I said, "No, that cannot be allowed to happen". This is an issue I wish to raise with Mr. Gloster, if that is okay.

Mr. Bernard Gloster

Absolutely.

Deputy Jennifer Murnane O'Connor

Sometimes we hear the expression, "There is money there", which I understand, but this has come to the forefront in recent weeks for me and other Deputies.

The biggest issue is the question of whether fostering will continue if this keeps going on. I refer to the cost-of-living crisis. There was such love among the foster mothers I spoke to, but equally such love among the children as well. It is a situation where it is important for us to have more social workers, but this is mainly about the children. They are my main priority, and we must ensure we have as many foster families as possible. In that regard, in the context of the cost-of-living crisis we, as politicians, must ensure we do all we can to support foster carers and that extra funding is provided for them. This needs to happen.

Another point raised with me was aftercare for children, perhaps related to college or further supports. Representatives of the Simon Community were with us before Mr. Gloster and his colleagues joined us. We spoke with them about the issue of adults over 18 falling between the cracks and into homelessness. I feel this is the case, and I have said we need more joined-up thinking between Tusla, local authorities and the HSE. There must be full reform in this context. I reiterate that when working with people the biggest issue I have found is that it is not possible for them to go on the housing list because they have no addresses and equally impossible for them to go on social welfare for the same reason. If people want a medical card in that context, what card can be given? I am not blaming anyone for the lack of joined-up thinking, because we could all blame each other. We all have a duty of care in this regard. I ask, therefore, that we set in train some sort of joined-up thinking process with all the different agencies. I ask that this possibility be examined.

Returning to the issue of children in care going to college, I raise the issue of what further supports are available in this type of situation, whether that might involve allowances or whatever. Another point raised with me was that not everybody, whether living within care with a foster family or not, wishes to go to college. As Mr. Gloster said, some people may want to be apprentices or to take up something like that. What kind of funding and supports can be availed of by people who do not wish to go to college but might wish to do something else?

I thank all the witnesses for coming in. We are all passionate about this topic. One of my family is a foster carer and I am very much aware of what is happening in this area. I therefore think we can do much more. My bottom line is that everyone needs to work together to see what we can do.

Mr. Bernard Gloster

I thank Deputy Murnane O'Connor and what she said is wholeheartedly clear. On the joined-up thinking point, I ask Ms Duggan to comment on what is going on with the housing strategy, because we have a clear input into that policy. Before that, however, I will comment briefly regarding the Deputy's contribution.

I not only accept that the Deputy heard what she referred to, but I also saw some reference to it on social media as well. As the CEO of a State agency, I wish to be very clear, and I am very clear with my staff, that no foster carer in Ireland need fear any type of reprisal and, if it is happens, it will not be in my name. Foster carers advocate for what they believe is right. If I thought for one minute this would run to the extent of someone interfering in a case management decision, I assure the Deputy I would take the most serious view of it. I assure foster carers that they can use their own names and advocate and they are quite welcome to do so.

Deputy Jennifer Murnane O'Connor

I thank Mr. Gloster.

Mr. Bernard Gloster

Will we challenge them at times regarding what they are saying to us? Of course we will, because it is equally important that public confidence is appropriately informed.

On the question of additional supports to foster carers, in the last year, on top of the ordinary allowances, we paid €3.1 million in additional supports to 800 foster carers. It is not, therefore, that the system is devoid of a willingness to wish to provide support for foster carers. It is not the case that there is a prejudiced view against supporting them. I just think the process is not consistent or structured enough. To be fair to the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, he has been very supportive of us providing him with a plan to get this approach right. It would be disingenuous of me not to note this aspect.

As I said, we have now introduced Way 2 Work Ireland, a specialised organisation, because many young people do not want to go to college. We must support them as well. These are people leaving our care and they are entitled to the same support, love and affection as anybody else would be in any set of circumstances, whether they go on to college or never go anywhere. As I said to Deputy Costello, though, there must be a point where we try to manage the safety of children at that vulnerable age. This is a challenge for us.

Deputy Jennifer Murnane O'Connor

Yes, of course.

Mr. Bernard Gloster

Turning to joined-up thinking, I have been a public servant for 34 years and it remains the interminable challenge to the State. I refer to the Holy Grail of integration. I certainly subscribe and sign up to it. I suppose some people might say that when people change their position, their position changes. We all have responsibilities to try to meet. I do not think anyone does not have joined-up thinking deliberately. It is just hard to-----

Deputy Jennifer Murnane O'Connor

Do it.

Mr. Bernard Gloster

-----crack. On this aspect, I ask Ms Duggan to comment on the housing strategy. A significant intervention was made with the Minister, Darragh O'Brien, on this issue.

Ms Kate Duggan

Regarding what Mr. Gloster mentioned concerning Way 2 Work Ireland, I encourage any members who have not seen the details of this programme to log on and watch the video online. It is a programme where we have doubled our funding in the past two years. It is targeted at supporting those hard-to-reach young people who find it difficult to access training or support. In this period, 148 young people have undertaken mentoring who had not been able to access education or training, and 53 have now secured employment. Training and education has been accessed by 408 young people overall through that programme. These were young people unable to access the traditional routes to education and training. Apprenticeships and training were arranged with key industry partners, including John Sisk & Son Limited and the Construction Industry Federation. This is, therefore, a positive, good news story. We have doubled our funding in this regard because this programme is working well in supporting those young people who have found it difficult to access education.

Turning to the inter-agency element, it is important to state first that in all our areas we now have an aftercare steering committee. It has members from the HSE, local authorities and Tusla and is concerned with assessing the wider needs of young people as part of their aftercare plan. As Mr. Gloster said, we have made a significant representation regarding and have had significant input into this process, along with the advocacy groups, such as Empowering People in Care, EPIC, and Care Leavers Ireland, and all the Departments in respect of the youth homelessness strategy being launched in November this year. It has ambitious targets concerning this inter-agency aspect in the context of the preventative element of youth homelessness and concerning how we respond to the existing problem. Tusla has just opened our first semi-independent living unit as well, in Donegal. We are going to try to support young people in care aged over 16 in semi-independent living by providing accommodation and supporting services. We have just recently opened this pilot project. We have four people there, but there is capacity for nine.

Deputy Jennifer Murnane O'Connor

I thank Ms Duggan.

Ms Clare Murphy

Coming back to the Deputy's comment regarding the three different quotes, Tusla was paying for that service. Under our public procurement rules, we must get three quotes for any service costing over €5,000. I imagine, therefore, this was the situation in the context referred to. The social worker, however, should have been getting the quotes.

Deputy Jennifer Murnane O'Connor

I thank Ms Murphy. I will send on the information in this regard. I thank all the witnesses again for their work. I know everybody is doing their best, and these are challenging times.

Chairman

I call Deputy Ward next.

Deputy Mark Ward

I apologise for being in and out of the meeting. I have not yet managed the ability to bilocate and I was speaking during debates in the Dáil Chamber.

I read the opening statements before I came in. I have also listened to what I could of the meeting. One area I wish to focus on especially is that of the challenges encountered in accessing mental health supports by young people who leave care. This problem has come up regularly. Most young people experience mental health difficulties between the ages of 16 and 25. Some 75% of people experience their first mental health difficulties between those ages. The child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, now only provides a service for moderate to acute mental health difficulties up to the age of 18. There is often then a cliff edge for young people in that service. They are either referred into the adult mental health services and left waiting for those, or sometimes the care they might receive in the adult mental health services is not the same as what would have been received in the CAMHS system, if those young people were lucky enough to be able to access it. Is this something the witnesses may have experience of? I will have a second question on this topic as well.

Mr. Bernard Gloster

I need to be fair.

I addressed that here previously. I want to make two distinctions when we talk about mental health and well-being. Mental health and well-being need increasing attention, certainly, for every young person we encounter and perhaps for many more we do not encounter. All of us as a society have become attuned to the pressures on young people. I agree with all the strategies for trying to support people wherever they gather, whether that is through schools or youth clubs. The maximum training we can give to people who interact with young people around mental well-being and those types of issues is something we should continue to pursue.

With regard to mental health, when it moves somewhat more into the sharper phase and, potentially, with mental illness, there is no doubt that there are challenges for young people who experience difficulty having, as it where, a diagnosis which allows them access to services under the Act, be it with CAMHS or with the transition to adulthood.

As stated earlier, when young people are leaving care and when they leave care, there are probably two significant challenges they face. Deputy Murnane O'Connor mentioned the interagency requirement causing us all to be on our game much more than perhaps we are at times. Those challenges are with regard to mental health support and sustainable accommodation, which very often go hand in glove with the young people I meet. I meet young people who have left the care system who tell me categorically that the worry and difficulty and the additional pressure on them partly comes from that pressure around sustainable accommodation. As the Deputy knows having long been an advocate for it, sustainable accommodation does not just mean a dry, warm place to put one's head at night. It is a whole community and set of supports. Therefore, I cannot but agree with the Deputy that it is a challenge for us. It is one we must keep pursuing, and we do keep pursuing it and trying to find strategies to help young people. To be fair to colleagues in the mental health services, they do try to help as well. I do not think people turn their backs. However, there are limitations to the mental health legislation that certainly do not help with some of the situations to which we try to respond.

Deputy Mark Ward

I have another question. Mr. Gloster touched on the alignment of services, which is really important. Sláintecare recommends that CAMHS should be extended to young people right up to the age of 25 to stop that kind of cliff-edge scenario about which I spoke. In that context, will Tusla ever be in a position to extend that aftercare service to young people up to the age of 25 to have that joined-up thinking about which Deputy Murnane O'Connor spoke that will help stop young people falling through the cracks? What barriers would Tusla face in bringing that forward? Is a cultural shift perhaps needed in how we provide care for young people? What resources would Tusla need to provide that service? I know it is a big shift.

Mr. Bernard Gloster

There are two parts to that. The first thing, and I genuinely say this from anecdotal evidence as well as from all the data we collect, is that I am enormously proud of the aftercare workers we have throughout Ireland both working for Tusla and for funded partners. Many of them form relationships with the young people that go well beyond the limitations of the formal 23 years of education. Sometimes, those relationships can be so important for many years after. I am so enormously proud of that, and I could never say enough about it. We must do more of that, however, and perhaps enable it to be formalised more.

During Covid-19, we introduced a system whereby anybody who was turning 23 and about to formally leave aftercare could stay in the provision and support system if he or she wished. That was one of the things we learned, which I believe will help when we come to produce the aftercare plan at the end of this year, just like the foster care plan. The Minister has really indicated a very strong commitment to trying to look at that and ask about the totality of government; not just Tusla but the totality of government in our social welfare, housing, childcare and education systems. What is the totality we can do that recognises the importance of the challenge for people who grow up in State care and who leave State care? One of the natural conclusions to that will be an extension of that very strict limitation that is in place the moment on formal supports stopping at the age of 23.

Deputy Mark Ward

That is welcome. I attended a conference last week in Denmark on youth mental health. One of the recommendations in Tusla's report is with regard to a pilot programme to explore new models on international best practice. What areas of best practice are out there at the moment that Mr. Gloster thinks would help? I heard numerous ideas at the conference I attended that I was able to bring back to my team. I would be interested in this particular area. What best practice is there internationally at the moment?

Mr. Bernard Gloster

I will ask the author of the report, Ms Duggan, to address that.

Ms Kate Duggan

That reference relates to best practice models with regard to fostering and foster care. In some countries, we almost see a professionalisation of foster carers in terms of them being employed as full-time carers providing a foster care service. In other countries, we are looking at a much more significant wraparound service to foster carers where key workers go into the home to support foster carers, especially where young people are presenting with more complex needs and more challenging behaviour.

We have set out a plan and certainly, colleagues who work with me in the areas of policy and practice look at taking the best of those models and working with foster carers. That is what is really important. This plan was developed in consultation with a couple of hundred foster carers. It is about working with those foster carers and piloting models. There are models around peer support where we employ foster carers to become peer supporters to other foster carers. I do not think it will be one size fits all. A the moment, we are looking at maybe piloting three of those models with foster families to see whether they make a difference in the context of what foster carers are telling us they need and what we know the children and young people in their care need.

Deputy Mark Ward

I look forward to that. I thank the witnesses very much.

Chairman

Are there any other questions?

Deputy Patrick Costello

Yes.

Chairman

I was half wondering whether I should ask that.

Deputy Patrick Costello

I will make one point. Ms Duggan spoke about the professionalisation of foster carers, which reminded me of something several foster carers said to me to the effect that if the weekly allowance were to be turned into an annual salary, it would amount to approximately €18,500, which is not much of a salary given the level of work they do. If we are going down that route of classifying them as professionals and acknowledging their work and professionalisation, the level of allowance they get speaks volumes.

I would like to drill into one thing and then I have another question. Ms Duggan spoke about the rising complexity, which is something that has been acknowledged a variety of times. Does Ms Duggan have any insight or research into why that is? A couple of things come to mind that I would like to explore. One is that we have anecdotal information about, say, children coming into care later, which breeds more trauma and gives rise to more complex needs. Equally, science and safety say that we should have family support plans. The children coming into care have already had this and had it not work in terms of meeting their needs. Obviously, those needs will be more complex further down the line. What is happening outside Tusla's control that is contributing to that? I appreciate that there may be plenty of things Tusla does not have control over that contribute to the complexity. These would be important for this committee to know about to raise with the Minister or for us to raise in other ways.

The second issue relates to consistency. One piece that came into my head was foster care committees. I could open up a can of worms here and go off in all sorts of different directions but I will try not to. However, one of the issues with-----

Chairman

We only have a few minutes left; it is the wrong time for a can of worms.

Deputy Patrick Costello

We are here until 6 p.m. One of the issues with recruitment is trying to get potential carers through the foster care committee. One of the things we spoke about at the foster care hearing was with regard to private arrangements and these sorts of things. They sometimes come up because a child can be in a good enough place but we know the person will not pass the committee. Are the committee or Tusla's internal politics becoming roadblocks to recruitment? We might look at, for example, how some foster care committees place great weight on a potential carer's body mass index, BMI, as part of the assessment, and really spend much time thinking, talking about and considering the foster carer's BMI whereas other committees do not.

I am not sure BMI is a reflection of the ability to parent; I certainly hope not.

My other point concerns the policy on needing two parents. One must be at home and two cannot be working. Given the wider demographic changes impacting recruitment, should we be trying to be more flexible in this regard?

Why are things more complex? What is going on both inside and outside? What is the position on consistency across foster care committees? Have internal policy roadblocks to recruitment been identified?

Mr. Bernard Gloster

On the question on the foster care committee and consistency, I will ask Ms Murphy to respond in a moment.

On the issue of complexity and the context, as referred to by the Deputy and me earlier, it is important to deal with the matter in a fairly stark way. I will do so if I can. When children enter care in an unplanned or emergency way, through a Garda section 12 arrangement or the out-of-hours team at night, we have a number of standard placements available to them. We have about 25 foster care families and about 16 residential care beds. These comprise our standard emergency provision. Unfortunately, we now have the context of what we call the special emergency arrangement. Today we have 40 young people in this category. There were 35 last May and the number rose to 60 during the summer. There were 44 last week. Today we have 40 young people whom we are trying to safely connect to placements from one day to the next. They are in care placement arrangements, be it in a holiday home, hotel or any other type of arrangement we can come up with, with two or three staff, depending on their needs. We should leave aside the issue of the cost because I believe that is the last consideration.

On the research, we drilled very carefully into what in the lives of the young people has meant nobody else could safely care for them. Residential care staff could not cope and those involved in foster care placements could not cope. The factors in the young people’s lives were drugs, crime, suicidal ideation, mental health issues, emotional issues, behavioural issues, trauma, domestic violence and multiple placement breakdowns. Ten had six of these factors in their lives at the time of the special arrangement. One had eight, and one had all nine. This reflects the immense challenge in the context I talk about.

I did an interview with The Irish Times two weeks ago. I am not a social worker, as members know. In the interview, I was asked what the answer was. I have to be very clear that I do not know what it is. I know what my professional staff tell me is necessary to try to keep the youth safe today and ground them in such a way that we can hopefully reconnect them to a placement. I have no doubt that coming into care late would be a feature somewhere.

The other shocking thing we saw was that 77% of the young people were volunteered into care as teens, usually well above 14 or 15 years of age. Some 76% of them went into care during the Covid pandemic. The Deputy referred to the circumstances right at the height of lockdown and other limitations in life. With probably stretched families who were just about holding it together, things fractured and broke. The factors are quite significant. It is important that we do not stereotype the young people or demonise them in any way. The factors in their lives were factors that were imposed on them; they are not factors of their own imposition.

Let me refer to the supports for these types of people this year. Let us say there is a consistent number requiring care of 40 to 45, with some going out of the system and some new ones coming in. There were about 900 admissions to care last year. While the number of cases in question might be small, it is very significant in the sense of how all State agencies are challenged to respond. My concern with regard to the special arrangements is that we have spent €22 million so far this year. When I part with the money, my question concerns the outcome for those concerned and the value of the intervention. Right now, it is just about keeping the young people safe. When the Deputy asks me about the context from which the kids are coming, that is it. I realise it sounds brutally raw to say it and that the Deputy will understand the spirit in which I am saying it. We have to talk about what life means for some young people today beyond the scope of our traditional child-protection understanding.

Ms Murphy will discuss foster care committees.

Deputy Patrick Costello

I have another question before we move on. Mr. Gloster is talking about very extreme, complex needs. The number of youths in question, 44 out of 6,000 or so, is a reflection of the extent of the issue. It is similar to the number in special care, who would have similar complex needs and a similar history of presentation. From the way Mr. Gloster talks – he should correct me if I am wrong on this – the typical caseload of a typical social worker in a typical local office is also becoming more complex.

Mr. Bernard Gloster

Yes.

Deputy Patrick Costello

Tusla has done the research on the extreme cases, amounting to 44 or 45. What about the complexity of typical cases, which Mr. Gloster says is also creeping upwards?

Mr. Bernard Gloster

The Deputy mentioned practice decisions and practice models. He will know that, from the commencement of the Child Care Act 1991, public policy and professional discourse and all that go with them reflect the view that, where at all possible, a child should be maintained in his or her own family and community. Sometimes supporting the family and community involves taking a mature risk. Sometimes that will work and sometimes it will disrupt or break in the teen years. There is always a debate over whether a young person should go into care a lot earlier. Practitioners always raise it with me. It is a very hard question to answer because the fundamental aim is to try to keep a child or young person at home with his or her family. The extent to which this can be done while at the same time avoiding complexity is a feature.

Beyond the 50 or 60 special emergencies, Ms Murphy will refer to the complexity that the Deputy is talking about in respect of the general in-care and child-protection population that we respond to. Certainly, we have seen substantial increases in the past two years in the context of mental health issues and disability that is not responded to or not responded to early enough. Domestic violence has also been an issue. Referrals owing to domestic violence are growing exponentially.

Deputy Patrick Costello

Is that attributable to greater awareness or a greater incidence? Have we seen an increase because of Covid?

Mr. Bernard Gloster

I generally would not be competent enough to say that, but maybe Ms Murphy will talk to the members.

Ms Clare Murphy

Just to go back to the first point raised, on the lack of flexibility regarding foster carers. Traditionally, they had to be married and own their own home. We definitely have moved from that. We have just come off the back of a campaign to recruit a diverse range of foster carers. We were very clear that carers could be married or unmarried, own their own homes or not, be working or not, be in same-sex relationships or be foreign. We are looking for a more diverse range of foster carers. We absolutely accept that the traditional model is not what we are using.

On foster care committees being diverse, the first thing I would say about the BMI is that most foster care committees have a GP or medical adviser. Having been on foster care committees, I hope that is the person who should be speaking about the BMI. We strive for consistency and standardisation. When HIQA inspects us, its representatives sit at a meeting of a foster care committee and give us feedback. We have the means of doing that.

On the diversity and complexity of the cases of young people, I believe hidden harm is a significant issue. I refer to the hidden harms of addiction and domestic violence. Whether there are more of these or whether we know more about them, I do not know the answer academically. Anecdotally, however, I believe it is a combination of both. On the basis of a number of public incidents or tragedies, I believe we are seeing an increase in violence in society.

Ms Kate Duggan

One of the important responses to that is that we are now going to have a domestic violence worker at every front door in Tusla. We are considering widening the front door of Tusla in terms of the multidisciplinary workforce that Mr. Gloster referred to. In five of the areas where we are quite concerned, where we had unallocated cases regarding which we knew there were significant needs, particularly owing to hidden harm and domestic violence, we established a new care pathway for the children. The children might previously have been described as “high need but low harm”. Those are often the children to whom we did not get to respond in a timely way and whom are now seeking to respond in a much more timely way with new teams to keep them safer at home.

Deputy Patrick Costello

I have one last point. The point on domestic violence speaks to the need for something I have advocated for a long time, that is, the secondment of duty social workers to the Garda district protective services unit.

We can go down the route of discussing Barnahus another time. A direct link to a duty social worker sitting in the Garda office at least once per week will help with these issues. I thank the Chair for her indulgence.

Chairman

I have no questions but have a point on domestic violence. While I do not believe any of us have the answers, there is much more awareness, and people are encouraged more to report it. Where it is being reported, one comes across people who are able to deal with it. It is terrible that this may not have been the case years ago. Many Garda stations now have protective services units and an entirely different approach. This is one of the key issues. I sometimes wonder whether there is an increase in domestic violence or whether people are reporting it more. It is probably a combination of both. It is good that people are reporting it more where it is happening. Do the witnesses have any final comments?

Mr. Bernard Gloster

I am good with that. I thank the Chair.

Chairman

I offer my sincere thanks because I realise we always stray off topic. It is great that when representatives of Tusla are before us, they address a range of questions that are not necessarily on the agenda. We appreciate that and the representatives' time. I apologise to Niamh Doody as I left her out when welcoming everyone at the start. I thank everyone.

Mr. Bernard Gloster

I thank the Chair. There is no difficulty at all with straying off the topic. For a statutory authority to have such an engaged committee is extremely helpful. We very much appreciate that. It is important in the advocacy process overall. I am very grateful to the Chair and clerk for all their assistance in organising this meeting today.

Chairman

Is it agreed that we publish the opening statements on the website? Agreed.

The joint committee adjourned at 5.42 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Tuesday, 18 October 2022.