Tusla should replace its three special care detention units with a single “centre of excellence campus” as part of a bid to overcome severe challenges within the area, an external review group has advised.
The centre, as well as improvements to staff pay and conditions, are among 30 recommendations made in the review, which was commissioned by the Tusla child and family agency amid “critical” bed shortages in the special care facilities.
Children at risk of serious harm can be detained for their safety on foot of a High Court order in one of the State’s special care units.
Due to a lack of staff, just 14 of 26 special care beds in the three facilities across the State’s three special care units are open, a statistic that has been repeatedly criticised by judges. The placement shortage has left children deemed to be at serious risk of harm living in unregulated emergency accommodation for a time.
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Rather than maintaining the three existing special care centres, the review group recommends a single campus featuring units with “graduated security levels”.
The proposed centre of excellence should be a “state-of-the-art” purpose-built facility, supported by a multidisciplinary staff team, shared services and research capacity, it said.
Noting challenges with each existing centre, it said none have the physical infrastructure to support a centre-of-excellence model. There are significant limitations around accommodation and staff capacity.
The three existing centres, Ballydowd and Crannóg Nua in Dublin and Coovagh House in Limerick, require ongoing and “considerable” investment, the review group said, noting that in Ballydowd, some bedroom windows cannot be opened to access fresh air.
In Crannóg Nua, it noted children are admitted through an enclosed garage, which it said is “concerning”.
“Put plain and simple, the current build environment supplying special care beds is not fit for purpose,” the review states.
Separately, it found Tusla’s special care provision has become “unfocused” and has “drifted” from its intended purpose as a short-term intervention.
Instead, it has become a “de facto placement option”, in which some children have been detained for up to two years.
This shift is largely due to insufficient onward placements and a lack of community-based resources for discharge-ready children, it found.
An earlier practice whereby an onward placement would be identified as part of the application process “appears to no longer be functioning”, it said.
The review group recommended aligning remuneration with comparable roles at the Oberstown Children Detention Campus
A lack of suitable onward placements alongside insufficient staffing, which emerged as a “critical challenge”, is resulting in under-occupancy, with just under half of the available beds not in use.
The review notes that while 168 staff have been hired since 2021, 174 staff have left the service in the same period.
Exposure to violence, harassment and aggression were identified as key issues affecting staff who leave the service.
Rolling and targeted recruitment campaigns have not yielded meaningful numbers of eligible applicants, “and there is no indication that this situation will change in the short to medium term”, the review notes.
Staff absenteeism, meanwhile, is “significantly high” at 20 per cent in both 2022 and 2023, with the review group noting that usual anticipated levels of absenteeism in the public services range from three per cent to five per cent.
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The review group recommended aligning remuneration with comparable roles at the Oberstown Children Detention Campus to address recruitment and retention issues. It noted that pay scales for those working in the youth detention and remand facility are “substantially higher”.
Other recommendations to target staffing issues include more psychological support, the use of “safety pods” and a review of the terms of employment and rosters to make the role more attractive.
The report presents 30 recommendations across capacity, governance, staffing, care models and funding. It proposed implementation over three years.
Although this is an “ambitious” timeline, the review group said it is “necessary to transition from crisis management to systematic service delivery”.
“Success depends on sustained Government commitment, adequate resources and effective inter-agency collaboration to ensure vulnerable children receive appropriate support,” the report says.
