Review of Adequacy of Child and Family Services 2001 / Northern Area Health Board

Report No.48/2001: Review of adequacy of child and family services 2001 / Northern Area Health Board Item Type Report Authors Northern Area Health Board (NAHB) Rights NAHB Download date 26/09/2021 00:27:47 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10147/43347 Find this and similar works at - http://www.lenus.ie/hse Report 48/2002 Review of Adequacy Of Child and Family Services 2001 1 Table of Contents Foreword 2 Introduction 4 Executive Summary 6 Chapter 1 Demographics and Socio-economic trends 8 Chapter 2 Child Health, Medical Nursing and Therapy Services 13 Chapter 3 Dental Health Services 22 Chapter 4 Alcohol and Addiction services 28 Chapter 5 Domestic Violence 33 Chapter 6 Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 37 Chapter 7 Family Support Services 46 Chapter 8 Child Protection 64 Chapter 9 Alternative Care 73 Chapter 10 Homeless Youth Services 92 Chapter 11 Aftercare Services 98 Chapter 12 Resources, Monitoring and Evaluation 105 List of Tables 114 References 117 2 Foreword The preparation of the annual review of the adequacy of our services for children and families is a welcome opportunity to take stock of those services and to benchmark them against national and regional policy. The National Children’s Strategy, launched in 2000, offers the most comprehensive strategic direction for our services. The National Health Strategy also guides our practice and contributes to our strategic planning. Since our last report in 2000 there have been considerable improvements in the range and quality of our services for children and families. To ensure quality and fairness across the region we have worked collaboratively with the Regional Authority and the two Area Health Boards in the development of a Regional Childcare Strategy to guide staff and service providers by providing a framework in which our Board plans, priorities and delivers services to children and families. The Regional Strategy and National Children’s Strategy sets out the context for strategic objectives and service delivery. There was a substantial investment in Child Care and Families Support Services in 2001. These service developments are detailed in the report. The report for 2000 identified a number of deficits and gaps in our Children and Family Services and these were prioritised in our Boards Provider Plan in 2001. I am pleased to inform the Board that considerable progress has been made in a number of areas in addressing these services. • A greater emphasis on staff training and development • Increased investment in early intervention and preventative services • More focused responses to the problem of youth homelessness • Continued development in foster care services • Strengthening the management of residential care at area and regional level • Increased planning and service development in services for homeless youth • Further promotional campaigns to increase immunisation uptake levels • Greater integration and co-operation with the addiction services • Additional services for survivors of domestic violence and childhood abuse • Strongly focused recruitment drives for staff . In 2001 an additional €7.890million was made available for service developments, bringing the net expenditure to €66 million. Among the service developments in 2001 were: • Additional 33 family support workers • Three new Family Centres in Darndale, Balbriggan and Blanchardstown • A new Springboard early intervention project for Darndale • Expansion of the Family Welfare Conferencing project • Additional project workers to provide early intervention at local level to youth at risk • Appointment of three Managers of Alternative Care • Additional posts for after care services • Establishment of a childminder notification system • Further investment in services for the prevention of teenage pregnancy 3 • Further investment in the implementation of Best Health for Children • Development of services for survivors of domestic violence and childhood abuse In 2001 the overall number of reported cases of child abuse was down by 186 on the previous year. However, the prevalence of reported incidents of sexual abuse remains high and requires a comprehensive response from our services. The implementation of Children First – the national guidelines for the welfare and protection of children continued during 2001, including in-service training and joint training with the Gardai. The report of the Working Group on Foster Care, published in May 2001, was a welcome contribution to national policy in this area. Our Board has established its own Working Group to consider the recommendations contained in the report and to devise a framework for implementation. Local foster care recruitment campaigns were organised during 2001 and the benefits will come in 2002. During the year our Board continued to implement the programme to bring all our residential homes up to the standards required by the Social Services Inspectorate. Considerable progress has been made in this area of service provision. Another welcome development during the year was the publication of the Government’s Youth Homeless Strategy. It offers a more planned and co-ordinated approach to tackling youth homelessness, which has been so prevalent in our Board’s area in recent years. Allied to this, our Board made further investment in after care provision during the year. There is a well-established co-relation between poor preparation for leaving care and youth homelessness. It is therefore vitally important that our young people in care are well equipped for life in the open community. Another initiative during the year in this area was the development of an Action Plan for Youth Homeless by the Eastern Regional Health Authority, in conjunction with the Area Boards. As part of our comprehensive response to young people out of home, our Board acquire, refurbished and commissioned a number of additional residential places and recruited additional staff, with a particular emphasis on providing locally based services and also meeting the needs of young homeless persons in the city centre. These developments took place in partnership with voluntary organisations involved in the provision of youth homeless services. The greatest challenge to us in developing new services and maintaining existing ones is the availability of adequate numbers of suitably qualified staff in areas such as public health nursing, child care, and social work and therapy services. As well as constraining service developments, staff shortages place additional pressures on existing staff. Therefore considerable efforts were made to rectify this during the years by reviewing extensive local, national, international recruitment drives. The benefits of these will be manifest throughout 2002. I wish to acknowledge and thank the staff and all providers of Child Care and Family Support Services in our Boards Area. Maureen Windle Chief Executive Officer 4 Introduction Under Section 8 of the Child Care Act 1991 a health board is obliged to review the adequacy of its child care and family support services. In preparing the report regard must be given to children who are not receiving adequate care and attention, in particular: • Children whose parents are dead or missing • Children whose parents have deserted or abandoned them • Children who are in the care of the board • Children who are homeless • Children who are at risk of being neglected or ill-treated • Children whose parents are unable to care for them due to ill-health or for any other reason Ideally inadequacies identified should be addressed as matters for action in the Provider Plan for the following year. The Review of Adequacy Report 2000 highlighted several inadequacies in a number of key areas: • Under investment in early intervention services • Staff shortages in the area of child protection • Insufficient community based services for children aged 6-12 years resulting in disproportionate numbers of children in this age group being received into care • Under developed after care service • Waiting lists for child guidance services • Lack of integrated approach across services and professionals delivering child health services • Waiting lists for orthodontic treatment • Underdeveloped integration between child care and drug treatment services • Need for additional services for survivors of domestic violence These deficiencies were addressed in the Provider Plan 2001, resulting in a number of service developments: • Three new Family Centres and a Spring Board Project • An international staff recruitment campaign • Provision of 33 additional family support worker posts • Creation of 10 new after care worker posts • Introduction of a child health co-ordinator post • Reduction in the waiting list for orthodontic treatment • Improved liaison with the drug treatment service • Additional social work and counselling posts for survivors of domestic violence and childhood abuse 5 In preparing the Provider Plan consideration is given to the Regional Child Care Framework, referred to the Chief Executive Officer’s foreword, which sets out twelve strategic objectives: 1. To identify children and families as early as possible who require support. 2. To provide a continuum of cost effective services appropriately balanced in terms of prevention, early intervention and therapeutic options in response to identified need. 3. To ensue that the perspective of service users is reflected in the design, delivery and evaluation of service provision. 4. To work in a co-ordinated way with other relevant policy makers and service providers at nation,

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