Today, the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) has published five inspection reports on children’s residential services. HIQA monitors services used by some of the most vulnerable children in the state against the National Standards for Children’s Residential Services to provide assurance to the public that children are receiving a service that meets the requirements of quality standards, and provide advice to the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs and the Child and Family Agency (Tusla).

These reports refer to three unannounced full inspections and two follow-up inspections of five services throughout the country. Inspectors found a varied level of service was being provided to these children, with some services adequately meeting children’s needs and other services requiring improvement to meet the standards.

Centre ID 4159 – Inspectors found that children were well looked after and had a good quality of life. Further improvements were required in monitoring and oversight, communication systems, staff supervision and training. Not all children were attending education programmes and there was inadequate planning to ensure children reached their academic potential.

Centre ID 4170 – Overall, inspectors found that children received good quality care and had good access to specialist services. Children’s rights were promoted and children were involved in decisions about their care. However, not all children had up-to-date care plans and sourcing of aftercare placements was a challenge for this service.

Centre ID 4186 – Improvements had been made since the previous inspection to enhance children’s rights and, in general, children’s needs were being met. However, staff were finding it difficult to manage children’s behaviours which was having an impact on all children. None of the children attended school during the inspection days.

Centre ID 4650 – While improvements had been made in some areas since the previous inspection, inspectors were not confident that Tusla had made sufficient progress to ensure that deficits identified in relation to the culture of care and associated care practices in the centre, including management of behaviour, safeguarding, child protection and institutional practices were being addressed as a matter of urgency.

Centre ID 5119 – Children told inspectors that they were happy to live in the centre. Statutory care reviews were not always occurring in a timely manner and care plans were not up to date. One child was not in full-time education. A safeguarding concern which had not been handled in line with Children First (2011) was escalated by inspectors who received a satisfactory response that an investigation and appropriate actions were being taken in line with Children First (2011).

All of the services have provided action plan responses to address the non-compliances identified on inspection and timelines for implementing these actions.