A special £1 million payment made to the Mid-Western Health Board for a three-year pilot project is aimed at stemming the incidence of children in care in Co Clare becoming homeless when they reach adolescence.
The payment was made by the Minister of State for Children, Ms Mary Hanafin, after the board developed a model in conjunction with Clarecare, a voluntary agency, to make a fundamental assessment of the 100 children in childcare in Co Clare. She said that 2,000 children are admitted to care in the State annually.
Both the board's proposal and that put forward by Father Peter McVerry, who works with homeless children in the Eastern Health Board area, seek to alleviate the problem of homelessness.
However, Father McVerry has called for an authority to work with homeless children which would be separate from the health board structure after the case of a teenage girl who had been tortured, raped and mutilated by her father and ended up homeless was highlighted earlier this week.
Mr Gerald Crowley, the Mid-Western Health Board's assistant chief executive, said care plans would be devised for individual children based on assessments made by "a social worker who will be the key person in pulling all this together".
He said the plan would involve all the professionals and agencies involved, along with the parents and extended family of the child in care.
The vast majority of the 400 children in care in the Mid-Western Health Board area, covering, Clare, Limerick and north Tipperary, are in foster care. About 50 youths present themselves as homeless to the health board annually and it is envisaged that the project would be extended to the other two community care areas in the region.
The model was devised by a Clare-based community care researcher, Ms Agnes Feely, who said it would identify the gaps in services for children in care.