Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 12 February 2014
28. Deputy Thomas Pringle asked the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the date on which all services are due to be transferred to the Child and Family Agency, including public health nursing and child mental health; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [6639/14]
View answer187. Deputy Aodhán Ó Ríordáin asked the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the timeline her Department envisages for broadening the representation on Túsla, the Child and Family Agency, to include a full range of services, including public health nursing, as recommended by the task force on the establishment of a child and family agency in 2012; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [7171/14]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 28 and 187 together.
The Child and Family Agency (CFA) was established on 1 January 2014 in accordance with the Child and Family Agency Act, 2013 and has service responsibility for:
- Child welfare and protection services formerly operated by the HSE including family support and alternative care services;
- Child and family-related services for which the HSE formerly had responsibility including pre-school inspections and domestic, sexual and gender-based violence services;
- Certain services relating to the psychological welfare of children and their families currently provided by the HSE;
- Services provided by the Family Support Agency and the National Educational Welfare Board which formerly operated as separate bodies under the aegis of my Department and which were merged into the new Agency.
The Task Force on the Child and Family Support Agency made recommendations on a range of other services relevant to children and families, including:
- public health nursing;
- speech and language therapy;
- child and adolescent mental health; and
- children's detention.
The practical implications of the scale of organisational change are such as to require that consideration of the Task Force's wider recommendations and, should it be considered appropriate, their implementation, take place according to a less immediate timescale. This will allow for more careful review and considerations in conjunction with relevant Departments, principally the Department of Health.
The Child and Family Agency, in conjunction with my Department, will adopt a cross-Government approach to ensure that we deliver a comprehensive and integrated service to vulnerable children and families. This will require the support and input of various departments and agencies. The Agency will:
- take child protection services out from where they were lost in an overloaded health service;
- bring education welfare and family support together with child protection and welfare;
- break down barriers between agencies and services; between professional disciplines;
- deliver much more seamless integration of policy and service delivery.
It will ensure that child and family social workers, family support workers and education welfare officers are all working together, on the same team. It will also ensure that child and family welfare will be the sole focus of a single dedicated state agency, with a ring-fenced budget (of €609 million) and streamlined management, overseen by a single dedicated government Department. It will pull together and give single coherent direction to all of the strands of service for families most in need in a way that has never happened in this country before including prevention and early intervention programmes, both universal and targeted, as well as family support services, the nationwide network of 106 family resource centres and education welfare services.
My Department is leading the Children's Services Committees Initiative for national and local interagency working to improve outcomes for children and young people. The purpose is to secure better developmental outcomes for children and young people through more effective integration of policies and services. Children's Services Committees (CSC) are local/county level structures for bringing together a diverse group of agencies in local county areas to engage in joint planning and co-ordination of services for children and young people. There are currently 16 CSC sites in Ireland and all are at differing stages of development and operation. It is my policy to roll out the Children's Services Committees Initiative during 2014 to all parts of the country.
A joint protocol for inter-agency working between the HSE and the Child and Family Agency is in place with effect from January 2014 following extensive dialogue between Children and Family Services, Primary Care, Disability Services and Mental Health Services. The protocol aims to ensure a consistent national approach to service delivery where delivery of two or more services are involved in the same case.
