Minister O’Gorman welcomes the publication of the HIQA Children’s Services Overview Report for 2020
From Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth
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From Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth
Published on
Last updated on
Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Roderic O’ Gorman, T.D., welcomes the publication of the HIQA Children’s Services Overview Report for 2020. The report outlines improvements across a range of services, demonstrating the commitment of Tusla managers and staff to improving the safety and welfare of children referred to its services.
The Minister particularly welcomes the inclusion of children’s own words and views about the child protection, foster care and residential services that they receive.
“I was encouraged to hear children’s own experiences of social work and care services in Ireland. It is clear that good relationships with their foster carers, social care and social work staff are important for their well-being.”
Tusla has 17 areas and the HIQA report outlines how the majority of these areas have good child protection, foster care and residential services. In 2020 HIQA carried our four inspections in two areas with deficits in delivering quality services at the time they were needed. Inspectors found that these areas had staff shortages and also needed improvements to the overall management and governance of the areas.
Minister O’Gorman stated that HIQA’s thematic inspections, across the majority of areas, provide insight into services that perform well and are able to be responsive to changing needs. The Minister said that:
“These reports assist in improving services and share learning as they outline the governance, models of practice and resources that are needed. Crucially, they also show us that services, and indeed the wider system, has seen continued and strong improvements in how we respond to the protection, welfare and care needs of our children.”
The Minister also welcomed HIQA’s findings in how Tusla managed the delivery of services in the first year of the pandemic.
Minister O’Gorman said that the government is committed to supporting Tusla and in recruiting and retaining more social workers, crucial to service delivery in children’s services. The Minister added that it is recognised that child protection social work is one of the most challenging areas of public sector work and said that officials are working with the third level sector, Tusla and the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation to increase social work educational places and employment.
ENDS