Foster children are being placed with unsuitable families in Ireland

“FOSTER children in Laois are being placed with families with criminal records, a history of alcohol and drug abuse, possible mental health issues and are not rechecked unless something goes wrong.

These are just some of the damning findings which have come to light in a HSE internal audit investigations into foster care in the Laois/ Offaly area, which was completed in September last year and made public on Saturday.
The 33-page in-depth report reveals a litany of serious problems in the two counties.
Among the findings, which focus on the years 2008-2011, it found that children in LaoisOffaly were placed with an “unsuitable and unapproved” foster carer who had unspecified, serious criminal convictions, a long history of admittance to HSE services and was previously rejected as a foster carer.
The report pointed out that, in one foster care family, there were concerns over alcohol abuse by both of the foster carers.
A significant number of “incidents of alcohol abuse were reported and it was decided that no further placements should be made with the foster care family”.
The report also found that some carers in the two counties were looking after foster children for more than four months before garda vetting.
A sample of 11 foster carers showed that there was no garda clearance on file for three of them.
The total value of payments in relation to childcare for the two counties in 2010 was just over €3.5 million.
The investigations found that a number of foster carers received overpayments from the HSE.
A sample check of files from September 2008 to April 2010 in Laois/Offaly found a €78,887 overpayment was made to one foster carer, which was not returned.
The investigators looked at a sample of nine family carers who were overpaid from April 2007 to January 2011.
They received a total overpayment of €122,806.58.
Some of this money has been recouped, while, to date, no agreement has been reached on the repayment of the €78,887 figure.
The report also found that a significant number of foster carers do not undergo training, despite this being a requirement of the 2003 safety standards.
The HSE’s internal audits made a recommendation for all foster care placements in Laois/Offaly to be reexamined.
Also, staff told investigators that there was no formal staff training programme in place.
In a series of official responses to the specific concerns, local health service management accepted that there were problems and said that they were working to address the concerns.
Among the reasons given for the failures were that certain steps were “resource dependent” and others related to protocols already in place which had not been fully implemented.”

Foster children are being placed with unsuitable families

[Laois Nationalist 7/12 by Joe Barrett]

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