Children faced ‘significant risk’ of harm at Tusla-operated residential centre, Hiqa finds

Children faced a “significant risk” of being harmed at a Tusla-operated residential centre, with incidences of bullying and assault in the facility, an inspection by the health and safety watchdog has found.

On Friday, the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) published inspection reports on three children’s residential centres operated by Tusla, the Child and Family Agency, in the southwest, the southeast and the Dublin North East regions.

At a centre in the southwest, inspectors found a “substantial deterioration” in the performance of the service since its previous inspection. Of the nine standards assessed, eight were not compliant with a substantial compliance in the other area.

Centre staff and managers described their experience of delivering care as “firefighting” given the increase in the frequency and nature of serious incidents.

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“This included occasions where children were at significant risk of being harmed. Staff told inspectors they were worried about not being able to protect the children or prevent recurrence of serious incidents,” the report said.

The inspectors found that although the service had stable management with oversight by regional managers, the time it had taken from initial recognition that children were not safe living together to effectively intervening to separate them, was too long.

“Progress was hindered by the limits of the service setting as well as ongoing delays in agreeing placement changes. This had led to a marked deterioration in the quality and safety of the service.”

The chief inspector said the “inappropriate” matching of children’s diverse needs and the timing of their placements had contributed to “poor peer dynamics”, with incidents of bullying and assault. Children also did not have the levels of space and privacy they required.

Following the inspection, and in light of the serious nature of the concerns that inspectors found in the service’s risk management and child protection arrangements, Hiqa issued an urgent compliance plan and held a cautionary meeting seeking further assurances from the provider.

The provider submitted an improvement plan to assist the service to come into compliance in all areas.

In a different centre in the Dublin northeast region, of the eight standards assessed, five were found to be compliant and three were substantially compliant.

Staff in this service area actively promoted children’s rights, including their right to dignity and privacy. The service also had effective systems in place to safeguard young people.

However, the service had undergone significant changes to the management structure in the months before this inspection and was experiencing significant staffing challenges.

As a result, there were “gaps in the oversight capacity of the management team”. While there was a positive approach for challenging behaviours, the use of restrictive practices required improvement, the report said.

The provider submitted a compliance plan to address the three standards deemed to be substantially compliant.

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