At least 63 children in care in north Dublin city found not to have received statutory visits by social workers

At least 63 children in care were overdue a statutory visit by a social worker in the north city area of Dublin at the end of March, according to the State’s health watchdog.

In one case, a child in foster care had not received a statutory visit in over three years, the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) said.

An inspection of foster care services in the area, which took place over a number of days last March, found they were not compliant in four out of five national standards.

Data provided prior to inspection showed there were 422 children in foster care at the time. Managers told inspectors there were six social work and three senior social work practitioner posts vacant on children in care teams while further information showed “high levels of staff turnover”.

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“It became apparent through a review of files that there were significant periods where children in care were not visited in line with statutory requirements,” the inspection report said.

As a result, inspectors looked at 20 children’s files to review the frequency and quality of statutory visits.

Inspectors noted that visits to children in their homes had been restricted during Covid-19 and in lieu of this, social workers relied on phone and video calls to contact children.

“However, Covid-19 restrictions did not account for the gaps in statutory visits found by inspectors on the files reviewed as part of this inspection,” they said.

“Systems in place at the time of inspection had not ensured that children were visited in line with required timeframes.”

There were at least 63 children overdue a statutory visit at the time of inspection, and there were four further cases whereby it was unclear if they had an up to-date visit.

Children were visited in line with regulations in only eight (40 per cent) of the 20 files reviewed by inspectors.

In one case, a child was seen outside of their placement nine months prior to the inspection, but inspectors found the last statutory visit to the child in their foster home took place in January 2019, “three years and two months prior to this inspection”.

In a second case, the last video call recorded was a year and five months prior to the inspection and “the last time the child was visited by a social worker pre-dated this”.

In a third case reviewed by inspectors, a child was visited the week before the inspection but there was a 15-month gap since the child’s previous visit.

An urgent compliance plan was issued to the area manager following the inspection.

Tusla, the Child and Family Agency, acknowledged there were “a number of improvements” required in the operation of the service.

“Some of the key issues highlighted in this report relate to the timeliness of statutory visits to children in care and visits to foster carers, and the governance and oversight of cases, which affected numerous elements of the service.

“The area is working to improve upon all of these areas and has agreed a compliance plan with Hiqa to ensure that deficiencies in the service are rectified as soon as possible,” it said in a statement.

“All statutory visits to children in care have been made since the inspection. All outstanding visits to foster carers have also been completed.”