A TOTAL of more than 6,500 cases of children at risk of abuse or neglect have not been allocated a social worker, according to an unpublished report commissioned by the Government.
A survey of social work and family support, conducted by the Health Service Executive, finalised last month, shows for the first time the full extent of the gaps in child protection teams across the State.
About 21,000 reports of children at risk were made to health authorities last year. However, one third of these were not allocated to social workers.
In some part of the country as many as three-quarters of children at risk had not been allocated a social worker to deal with the case, figures show.
The report says cases where there is information to suggest that a child is at “immediate risk of harm” receive the highest priority. Cases which are most likely not to be allocated a social worker are low to medium risk cases and typically involve welfare issues.
In order to tackle waiting lists, it says the “closure” of unallocated cases is done intermittently by social work teams to relieve pressure on the service.
This typically happens if a welfare case has been waiting for more than a year, if a child or family cannot be located or when a young person reaches 18.
Some social work teams describe undertaking a “blitz” on a periodic basis, while others conduct an initial assessment before closing a case. However, it found there was no standardised approach.
Most unallocated cases were in Waterford (736, or 70 per cent of all cases), followed by Dublin north centre (527, or 49 per cent), Kildare/ West Wicklow (513, or 74 per cent) and Wexford (500, or 43 per cent).
However, areas such as west Cork and Mayo had no cases waiting to be allocated a social worker.
The data does not show the “risk rating” of these unallocated cases, or how long they remained unallocated.
The report also shows evidence of “significant under-resourcing” of HSE social work services.
A comparison with social work services internationally shows there are about twice as many social workers in the North compared to the Republic. In addition, it says about 66 posts were “lost” during the recruitment ceiling put in place between 2007 and 2008.
In the area of child and adolescent mental health services, it points to serious deficits in services and excessive waiting times for assessment, diagnosis and treatment in some areas.
