Section 38 of the Child Care Act 1991, provides that the Heath Service Executive may make arrangements with suitable persons to ensure the provision of an adequate number of residential services for children in its care.
All children’s residential centres are inspected to ensure that the children living in the centre are receiving the care and protection that they require. The National Standards for Children’s Residential Centres provides a basis for consistently promoting quality of care in children's residential centres. T he HSE registers and inspects non-statutory voluntary and private children’s residential centres against these standards. A copy of the standards is available on my Department's website at www.dcya.ie.
The process of assessing standards of care in the centres is undertaken by a HSE inspector who visits the centre and gathers information through interviews and meetings with the centre management, staff members and young people, analysis of case files and centre records and contact with guardians, social workers and other professionals as appropriate. Centres are thoroughly inspected and where an inspection report identifies non-compliance with a regulation, the centre will not be registered and re-registered again until compliance has been achieved.
All young people who have had a care history with the HSE are entitled to an aftercare service based on their assessed needs. Section 45 of the Child Care Act 1991 places a statutory duty on the HSE to form a view in relation to each person leaving care as to whether there is a "need for assistance" and if it forms such a view, to provide services in accordance with the legislation and subject to resources. The basis of an aftercare service is an individual needs assessment which identifies a young person’s need for accommodation, financial support, social network support and training and education. The level of support required will vary for each individual from advice to accommodation to further education, employment or training and social support. The core eligible age range for aftercare is 18 years to 21 years. The HSE policy allows flexibility for this to be extended up to the age of 23 years to complete a course of education.
