Written Answers Nos. 98-102
98. Deputy Bernard J. Durkan asked the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the number of incidents of child physical, mental or sexual abuse reported to the various agencies in each of the past three years on a monthly basis to date; the extent to which it has been found possible to achieve a satisfactory resolution from the children’s point of view; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36769/15]
View answerTusla, the Child and Family Agency holds the statutory responsibility for child welfare and protection, and is the appropriate body to receive reports of concerns relating to children at risk. Where there are reasonable grounds for concern for a child's welfare and protection, Tusla should always be informed. This has been Tusla's responsibility since its establishment in January 2014.
As part of governance arrangements, Tusla provides my Department with regular performance activity reports for monitoring purposes. These include figures showing the number of referrals which are disaggregated by welfare concerns and abuse concerns.
Not all referrals will result in a need for a social work service or in a child being received into care and approximately 50% can be expected to proceed from preliminary enquiry to the initial assessment stage. The reasons for this include the duplication of referrals, the child being known to the service and receiving attention such as Meitheal or other Family Support, or that the referral was not appropriate for the agency.
The most recent figures for welfare concerns and abuse concerns at the end of first quarter of 2015, showed 4,770 abuse concern referrals and 6,223 welfare concern referrals. Of these referrals, 56% of abuse concerns and 44% of welfare concerns went forward to the initial assessment stage. The referrals of a child abuse concern were reported as: Physical (22%), Emotional (37%), Sexual (15%) and Neglect (26%).
The data collected by Tusla on referrals is collated, validated and published quarterly in arrears. The Deputy has requested the data on a monthly basis, however as this is unavailable, the following table shows the total number of Child Protection referrals for the past three years, quarterly for 2014 and 2015, and broken down by abuse category where available:
|
No. of Child Protection Referrals |
2015 Q1 |
2014 Q4 |
2014 Q3 |
2014 Q2 |
2014 Q1 |
2013 Outturn |
2012 Outturn |
|
Physical |
1,038 |
1,051 |
865 |
1,113 |
1,037 |
4,330 |
No Breakdown Available |
|
Emotional |
1,743 |
1,553 |
1,533 |
1,571 |
1,576 |
5,217 |
- |
|
Sexual |
729 |
749 |
763 |
796 |
806 |
3,385 |
- |
|
Neglect |
1,260 |
1,211 |
1,326 |
1,504 |
1,222 |
6,421 |
- |
|
Total Referrals |
4,770 |
4,564 |
4,487 |
4,984 |
4,641 |
19,353 |
19,044 |
It is difficult to say if a satisfactory resolution, from a child's point of view has been achieved in all instances, however, it is important to note that children are consulted, in as far as possible, in relation to decisions that affect them. The Deputy may be interested to note that a recent Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) inspection of the foster care services of Galway/Roscommon found that the area exceeded standards of education and of aftercare, indicating good outcomes for the children in these areas.
99. Deputy Bernard J. Durkan asked the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the extent to which he expects to be in a position to offer support financially and-or otherwise to youth organisations in the coming year; if this remains in line with expectations; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36770/15]
View answerMy Department administers a range of funding schemes and programmes to support the provision of youth services to young people throughout the country including those from disadvantaged communities. Targeted supports for disadvantaged, marginalised and at risk young people are provided through the Special Projects for Youth Scheme, the Young Peoples Facilities and Services Fund, Rounds 1 and 2, Local Drugs Task Force Projects and certain other programmes including the Local Youth Club Grant Scheme and Youth Information Centres. The funding schemes support national and local youth work provision to some 380,000 young people and involve approximately, 1,400 youth work staff in 477 projects and 40,000 volunteers working in youth work services and communities throughout the country. In 2015, funding of €49.9m has been provided to my Department for these schemes.
I am pleased to tell the Deputy that Budget 2016 has provided an additional €1.1m in current funding to my Department to support the provision of youth services, by the voluntary youth sector. This will bring the allocation for the projects and services throughout the country to €51m in 2016. My Department will shortly commence work in the detailed allocations for local youth services and projects and every effort is being made to notify local projects of their allocation for 2016 in the coming weeks. An additional €2.25m in capital allocation has also been provided in Budget 2016. In the main, the capital allocation will be used to support smaller scale projects in local youth services such as refurbishments, health and safety works and accessibility projects. Details of this new capital scheme will be advertised early in the new year.
The Deputy may be aware that I recently launched Ireland’s first National Youth Strategy 2015 - 2020 on 8th October 2015 at the Bluebell Youth and Community Project in Dublin 12. The National Youth Strategy sets out Government’s aim and objectives for young people, aged 10 to 24 years, so that they can be active and healthy, achieving their full potential in learning and development, safe and protected from harm, have economic security and opportunity and be connected and contributing to their world. It is a universal strategy for all young people. It has a particular focus on the needs of young people at risk of experiencing the poorest outcomes.
The Strategy identifies some fifty priority actions to be delivered by Government departments, state agencies and by others, including the voluntary youth services over 2015 to 2017.
As a first step in delivering the Nation Youth Strategy, my Department has introduced a new Youth Employability Initiative which will provide €600,000 in grants to the voluntary youth services for programmes that target disadvantaged young people to improve their employability. The new Youth Employability Initiative is funded under the Dormant Accounts Scheme. Full details of the Youth Employability Initiative, including the application form are available on my Department's website, www.dcya.gov.ie.
100. Deputy Bernard J. Durkan asked the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the extent to which support remains readily available and accessible to young victims of bullying in the workplace or other areas outside of the education system; if young persons have sufficiently ready access to help with particular reference to cyber and text bullying; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36771/15]
View answerA national consultation was conducted with children and young people during 2011 and the report, Life as a Child and Young Person in Ireland: Report of a National Consultation, was published in 2012. Bullying and peer pressure emerged in the top eight 'not good' things for both children (aged 7-12) and young people (aged 12-18).
The Action Plan On Bullying: Report of the Anti-Bullying Working Group to the Minister for Education and Skills was published in January 2013. It clearly recognised the necessity to tackle this issue in a holistic way and though it saw schools as pivotal, it placed the issue within a much wider social context. Cyberbullying is just one aspect of bullying, but one that given the rapid expansion of access to technology by young people has come much more sharply into focus.
It is important for parents to recognise that they need to talk to children about bullying whether it is through social media or not. Data gathered from nine year old children as part of Growing Up in Ireland, the National Longitudinal Survey commissioned by my Department, showed that based on responses from their mothers, 24% of them thought that children had been victims of bullying in the past year. This represents a significantly lower proportion than that reported by children themselves, which was reported at 40%, suggesting either that many parents are unaware that their child has experienced bullying in the previous year, or that they may have different perspectives about what constitutes bullying.
Schools are strengthening collaboration and interaction with youth services who engage with young people outside of the school setting, and promote the active participation by pupils in youth focused services within their local communities. DCYA funds the National Youth Health Programme which is run in partnership with the HSE and the National Youth Council of Ireland. The programme's aims are to provide a broad-based, flexible health promotion/education support and training service to youth organisations and to all those working with young people in out-of-school settings, and includes programmes aimed at exploring bullying and cyberbullying with young people.
Work has been taking place in the HSE to pilot 'social prescribing'. Social prescribing creates a formal means of enabling primary care services to refer young people with social, emotional or practical needs which include experience of being bullied or showing bullying behaviour to a variety of holistic, local non-clinical services.
The Minister of Communications established an Internet Content Governance Advisory Group under the chair of Dr. Brian O’Neil in 2013 to ensure our national policy represents best practice in offering the same online protections to our citizens as those available in the offline world. The Group’s report was approved by Cabinet and published in May 2014 and makes several recommendations aimed at protecting children and young people without unduly limiting their opportunities and rights online. Along with changes to institutional, administrative and legal structures, the report makes four specific recommendations on cyberbullying, aimed at providing stronger supports for tackling this issue through primary and post-primary curricula, and additional training and awareness measures
The Office for Internet Safety is an Executive Office of the Department of Justice and Equality and has been established by the Government to take a lead responsibility for internet safety in Ireland, particularly as it relates to children. As part of its work it holds an annual Safer Internet Day, which has included a rollout of a social marketing campaign specifically targeted at young people.
101. Deputy Bernard J. Durkan asked the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the extent to which the welfare of children in State care or in institutions continues to be monitored effectively; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36772/15]
View answerMy Department receives regular detailed reports on key performance and activity indicators of service provision, including on children in care, from Tusla, the Child and Family Agency. Officials also meet Tusla management as needed as well as regular meetings on a monthly and quarterly basis. Tusla has internal mechanisms for quality assurance of its services, in addition to the regulatory monitoring requirements, which include regular visits by a social worker to children in care and the inspection of private and voluntary children's residential centres.
My officials use information provided by Tusla to monitor the current status of service provision and the effect as reforms to services take effect. Activity indicators allow for attention to be focussed on areas where further improvement is required. In addition to regular reports, Tusla also provides occasional or special topic reports, as needed, which can then be used for budget and resource planning. It is also the case that Tusla would inform my Department of specific issues where risks are identified and to ensure that effective management responses are put in place.
At the end of July, 2015, there was a total of 6,394 children in care and of those 358 (5.6%) were in residential care. Tusla has responsibility for inspecting all private and voluntary children's residential centres and since the end of September these inspection reports are available on the Tusla website, www.tusla.ie.
In addition to the reporting arrangements with Tusla, my Department also reviews the findings of a number of independent bodies, which are made available in the inspection reports from the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA), who inspect all statutory children's residential centres and Special Care Units run by the State, as well as Fostering Services and Child Welfare and Protection Services in each area. My Department also receives reports on child deaths and serious incidents from the independently chaired National Review Panel, and reports from the Ombudsman for Children.
102. Deputy Bernard J. Durkan asked the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the extent to which the number of children in State care or fosterage has fluctuated over the past five yeas; the degree to which adequate provision continues to be made for supervision and ongoing review; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36773/15]
View answerTusla, the Child and Family Agency, has a statutory duty under the Child Care Act 1991 to promote the welfare of children who are not receiving adequate care and protection and, if necessary, to receive a child into the care of the State. I am satisfied that Tusla takes its responsibility very seriously regarding the welfare of children in care and that there is a robust framework of regulations and standards, to ensure that children are placed in safe and caring settings. The following table shows the number of children in care at the end of each year, the number in foster care and the corresponding percentage.
|
- |
No of Children in Care |
No of Children in Foster Care |
% of Children in Foster Care |
|
2009 |
5674 |
5058 |
89% |
|
2010 |
5965 |
5354 |
90% |
|
2011 |
6160 |
5564 |
90% |
|
2012 |
6332 |
5816 |
92% |
|
2013 |
6460 |
5998 |
93% |
|
2014 |
6463 |
6011 |
93% |
|
2015 (31 July) |
6394 |
5922 |
93% |
All children in care should have an allocated social worker but it is important to note that if a child has not been allocated a social worker, the cases are reviewed regularly by the principal social worker and are managed by duty social work teams to ensure the necessary needs of the children are being met.
As the majority of children in care are in foster care family settings in the community, indicators of stability of the placement and participation in education are useful in monitoring the performance of Tusla in relation to overall welfare. I am happy to say that Tusla has reported that the results for these indicators are positive and show that placement stability is very high and participation in education is on a par with the national participation rates.
Foster carers are selected on the basis of their ability to meet the needs of individual children. In some cases a child may require a foster care placement with additional supports to meet additional needs and in these cases extra supports and respite facilities may be provided when required. Social work support is also provided for foster carers in the form of a link worker. The link worker is a professionally qualified social worker and meets regularly with foster carers to provide training, information and whatever other support that may be required.
I would also note that the Agency provides funding to the Irish Foster Care Association which provides additional supports to carers.
