Seán Power
Ceist:91 Mr. Power asked the Minister for Health the cost of placing children in care; and the way in which this compares to placing them in foster homes. [12983/96]
Written Answers. - Children in Care.
Seán Power
Ceist:92 Mr. Power asked the Minister for Health the studies, if any, undertaken to evaluate the benefit of placing children in foster homes as against placing them in care; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12984/96]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 91 and 92 together.
Children who come into the care of health boards are placed in foster or residential care. The cost of keeping a child in residential care is considerably greater than the cost of foster care. The main reason for the difference is the cost of employing professionally trained staff to care for children on a 24 hour basis. The cost of maintaining children in care varies from case to case depending on a number of factors, including the age and needs of the child, the type of placement, whether he or she needs specialist counselling, medical or psychological care and the level of supervised access between the child and his or her parents.
The policy of developing foster care as the preferred option in the case of children at-risk is based on the principle of normalisation as recommended in the report of the Task Force on Child Care Services. Although I am not aware of any studies that have been conducted on the relative effectiveness of foster care and residential care in this country, I will forward the Deputy a list of international research articles on the subject.
Seán Power
Ceist:93 Mr. Power asked the Minister for Health the number of children in care; and the way in which this figure compares with previous years. [12985/96]
The most recent year for which official statistics on the number of children in care are available is 1992. In that year there were 3,090 children in care. This does not include children in day care or day fostering, living with their mothers in sheltered accommodation or women's refuges or at home being supervised by health boards.
Details of the number of children in care for the years 1982 to 1992 are set out in the following table. Since 1982 the number of children in care has increased by over 26 per cent.
There has been a major shift from residential to fostering as the preferred mode of care. Between 1982 and 1992 the percentage of children in foster care has increased from 55 to 75 per cent.
No. of Children in Care 1982-92
|
Year* |
No. of Children in Care at 31st December |
Foster Care |
Residential Care |
|
1992 |
3,090 |
2,284(73.9%) |
765(24.8%) |
|
1991 |
2,944 |
2,161(73.4%) |
742(25.2%) |
|
1990 |
2,885 |
2,084(72.2%) |
756(26.2%) |
|
1989 |
2,756 |
1,980(71.8%) |
734(26.6%) |
|
1988 |
2,614 |
1,857(71%) |
705(26.9%) |
|
1985 |
2,503 |
1,391(55.6%) |
1,067(42.6%) |
|
1984 |
2,400 |
1,288(53.67%) |
1,105(46.04%) |
|
1983 |
2,534 |
1,338(52.8%) |
1,186(46.8%) |
|
1982 |
2,446 |
1,365(55.8%) |
1,072(43.8%) |
*No statistics were collected for the years 1986 and 1987.