Galway Bay fm newsroom - The Galway Roscommon areas were found to be moderately non-compliant in four categories in the latest report on Tusla's national standards for foster care.
The report summarises the overall findings from all 17 service area inspections, conducted throughout 2017 and 2018, and the follow-up inspections and desktop reviews carried out in all four regions in 2018.
In the Galway/Roscommon Service Area, the 2017 themed inspection found moderate non-compliance in relation to safeguarding and child protection.
In the 2017 judgement, the Galway/Roscommon region was found to be compliant in the area of general foster carers assesment.
The group was found to be substantially compliant in relative foster carers assesment.
It was also found to be substantially compliant in the areas of training, recruitment and retention.
However, moderate non-conpliance was noted in the four categories of safeguarding and child protection, support and supervision, reviews and foster care committee.
The areas for improvement related to allegations not always being notified to the Foster Care Committees and inconsistent classification of complaints, concerns and allegations to ensure the correct response.
In 2017, over half of the 220 general foster carers in the Galway/Roscommon Service Area did not have up-to-date Garda vetting.
Not all staff were clear about the provisions of the protected disclosures policy and not all foster carers were trained in Children First.
The follow-up inspection in 2018 found that some progress had been made which led to improvements in the service area.
The statement of progress returned by the area outlined that all the identified actions to ensure that staff were familiar with protected disclosures, and that all allegations were classified correctly, had now been completed.
HIQA carried out follow-up monitoring of the foster care services in four out of five service areas in the West Region between February and March 2018.
Based on the findings of the 2017 themed inspections, which focused on eight standards, and the resulting action plans, a statement of progress in the form of a self-assessment was completed by each service area.
Desktop reviews were carried out for Galway/Roscommon and Mayo.
The report recorded 216 general foster carers at the time of follow up in the Galway Roscommon region, with 69 relative foster carers and 403 children in care.
