HIQA report finds non-compliance at Tusla service in Dublin North City

Children at significant risk of harm are not receiving care which ‘meets the requirements of quality standards’ in the north city.

This is according to an inspection report on child protection and welfare services operated by the Child and Family Agency (Tusla) in the Dublin North City service area.

The inspection aimed to assess compliance with the national standards relating to the management of children who are at and who are placed on Tusla’s Child Protection Notification System (CPNS).

The Health Information and Quality Authority (the Authority) monitors services used by some of the most vulnerable children in the state.

Dublin North City is one of Tusla’s 17 areas for the provision of local services.

The area incorporates Dublin’s North Inner City, Cabra, Finglas, Ballymun, Whitehall, Fairview and Clontarf.

According to HIQA, there is a high level of need in the area, as demonstrated by the highest rate of referral under Children First; highest rate of children on the CPNS and highest rate of children in Care across all 17 areas.

According to the report, at the time of the inspection, there were 12.5 whole time equivalent vacancies of key frontline social work/care vacancies across the child protection and welfare service.

Five of these vacancies were being temporarily filled by agency staff.

“Overall, the service needed to improve and strengthen governance arrangements in order to provide a consistent and compliant service to children listed on the Child Protection Notification System (CPNS),” the recently published report states.

“Governance arrangements were established but their effectiveness varied.

“Risks to the service persisted over time and this hindered the provision of a responsive and consistent service to all children deemed to be at ongoing risk of significant harm.

“This inspection found non-compliances in the service’s ability to perform its functions in line with relevant legislation, national policies and standards.

“The lack of responsive pathways for children on the CPNS who required alternative care posed major risk to the quality and safety of the service.”

During this inspection, the area manager and senior managers identified that there were “a variety of challenges” impacting upon the delivery of child protection and welfare services to children listed on the CPNS.

They told inspectors that the challenges and risks to the service included “unmanageable case loads, high turnover of staff, violence and aggression towards staff by service users, increased demands for a service from the community, increase in the number children requiring care in the area, limited access to suitable placements for children requiring alternative care and challenges securing legal orders for children.”

Inspectors also found that admission to care, in circumstances when all alternative means of protecting children had been exhausted, was delayed for four children listed on the CPNS.

While one child had been placed in care at the time of this inspection, for three children, who were identified as requiring care placements in February 2021, Tusla had not initiated care proceedings

to protect these children in line with legislative requirements.

“Inspectors were informed that this decision was taken due to the lack of suitable care placements available to the agency,” the report says.

Following the inspection, HIQA said that inspectors “escalated this case for immediate assurances from the area manager in relation to safety of these children.”

HIQA received an appropriate response that indicated the children were in a place of safety.

This non-compliance was also escalated by HIQA to national senior management of Tusla, following this inspection, and a response was received from Tusla which “outlined actions to be taken to address the ongoing risks regarding the lack of suitable care placements for children.”

HIQA said the quality of the creation, implementation and monitoring of effective safety plans for children experiencing ongoing risk of significant harm was “too variable.”

The service was “not consistently in compliance with the national standards for the

protection and welfare of children.”

Following the inspection, HIQA say that Tusla “provided satisfactory assurances that outlined actions to be taken to address the ongoing risks regarding the lack of suitable care placements for children.”

Northside People contacted Tusla for a comment regarding the inspection report for Dublin North City service area but had not received a response at the time of going to press.