Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr McGuigan): I welcome Kathleen Toner, director of engagement at the Fostering Network in the North; and Avery Bowser, fostering manager at Action for Children and board member of the British Association of Social Workers (BASW). You are both very welcome to the Committee. We have allocated 40 minutes for the session, and it will be covered by Hansard. I will hand over to you for a brief presentation.

Ms Kathleen Toner (Fostering Network): It is nice to see you all again. I am the director for engagement and influence across the UK for the Fostering Network but with responsibility for Northern Ireland. I have been in the role for 13 years. For those of you who do not know, the Fostering Network is the leading charity and membership organisation for foster carers. In Northern Ireland, it has 100% membership among approved foster carers, approved kinship carers, all approved services and the five health and social care trusts. Our belief is that foster care transforms children's lives, and our work centres on supporting foster carers, developing best practice and advocating for stable, nurturing family environments for foster children.

My comments today are based on feedback from our members. Given the tight timescales for scrutiny, I do not have a foster carer accompanying me today. However, I offer the Committee an opportunity to engage directly with foster carers should the timetable permit. We would be more than happy to facilitate discussions to aid your deliberations, if you would find that helpful.

You will all know that the current fostering regulations have been in place since 1996, following the introduction of the Children (Northern Ireland) Order 1995. The Fostering Network has advocated a review and update of those regulations since 2012. In fact, when I joined the organisation in January 2013, my first piece of work was with the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA), which had been commissioned by the Department to undertake a review of foster care. That led to the first iteration of the draft regulations. After that review, the regulations were developed and consulted on, but they have remained in draft form until now.

In 2022, some years later, we conducted another consultation on what were then the revised draft regulations. That involved online sessions, surveys and workshops with over 60 foster carers, kinship foster carers and some of our fostering services members. The consultation was robust, and we submitted a robust response. We have been pleased to see that a significant amount of the commentary that we made at that point is reflected in the draft regulations before you.

For those of you who were here in October, I was here to speak about the current challenges faced by foster carers in the context of the review of children's services. Diane asked about what we could do to improve things quickly, and my answer was that we needed to take forward the regulations. We are pleased to note that many of our comments and proposals have been reflected in the schedules to the regulations. We feel that this is a really important day for foster care in the North, as we see a substantial shift in the framework for foster care that clearly outlines what foster carers and the children and young people for whom they care can expect.

There are, as you would imagine, some general comments that I want to make. The state of foster care in Northern Ireland remains challenging. We still have the highest number of children in care, and foster carers continue to leave the sector due to a range of factors. One substantial issue that has contributed to that is the level of foster care allowances and fees. While they are not directly addressed in the regulations, they impact on the context in which the regulations will be implemented and how they will land with foster carers. We look forward, however, to the development of guidance on the regulations and note that the Department of Health has been undertaking an exercise in parallel with key stakeholders that has resulted in draft fostering standards. We have been calling for those for a long time. Together, those developments will, hopefully, bring foster care into the 21st century, and we look forward to seeing their impact.

The new regulations broadly align with fostering provisions in England, Scotland and Wales. One issue that we have raised over the years is the absence of primary legislation here that requires statutory fostering services to be registered with RQIA. Unlike other parts of the UK, the foster care that is provided by trusts is not subject to regular review. I hope that, as part of the standards process, the Department will undertake a commitment to review statutory fostering services in Northern Ireland, given that the previous review of fostering services was in 2012-13. I would like to see one before the end of the decade, if that is possible.

I want to specifically comment on some of the regulations. I caveat those comments by recognising that regulations cannot cover all eventualities. Some of what I say will be addressed by way of subsequent guidance and standards and the collaborative process involved in developing them. We have been part of that process as, along with a range of others, a key stakeholder. That has been a beneficial process. It is linked to the trauma framework and takes us to a different place from our colleagues outside Northern Ireland. It is an innovative and collaborative approach, which we very much welcome.

I have a few comments on specific regulations. They arise from some of the comments that have been made to us by some of our foster carer members. Regulation 7 covers "Reviews and terminations of approval". When we consulted foster carers about the draft regulations, we found that they felt that the fact that foster carers are annually reviewed did not necessarily reflect the individual circumstances of families, particularly given current workforce pressures. When we consulted on it in 2022, we were emerging from COVID, and there were real challenges with people going into services to do reviews. They felt that, perhaps, the existing arrangements were sufficient. That is debatable. It is certainly not something that is being legislated for through the regulations. One of the things that were proposed, however, is that it should reflect individual families. If you have your first review after one year, you could think about what that might mean. If you have a very stable placement, is there a need for that to happen? With the current workforce pressures, we are aware that some of our foster carers are not having their annual reviews. Certainly, when they do have them, they are quite delayed.

I want to mention terminations of approval and appeals processes. Foster carers are always concerned about whether their approval will be terminated. The lack of an appeals process and access to advocacy during a period in which their approval might be terminated is, as you can imagine, a stressful experience. The Adoption and Children Act (Northern Ireland) 2022 includes provisions to place fostering panels on a statutory footing, but those are yet to be implemented. That is a major concern. Avery will, I think, cover some of that in his comments in more detail.

Regulation 11 covers the "Termination of placements". Its current wording states that a child should be removed "immediately" from a placement if continuing it "would be detrimental to" their welfare. Foster carers have raised concerns that the regulation does not necessarily reflect the individual nature of fostering families and, if applied in every circumstance, could result in unnecessary disruption to children's lives. We note that, elsewhere in the schedules, the regulations align with policies and procedures for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, as outlined by the Safeguarding Board for Northern Ireland (SBNI). That provides some reassurance.

Regulation 12 covers "Short-term placements". We very much recognise that short-term placements in foster care vary in duration. Sometimes, a child is placed on a short-term basis — say, maybe three months — but they can be there three years later. That is not necessarily a bad thing, if the child is well established and secure. However, we hope that fostering agencies have the necessary capacity to meet the needs of those placements as defined by the new regulations.

Regulation 14 is on placement records. Foster carers were pleased to see that many of their suggestions in the consultation have been reflected in the new arrangements, particularly in relation to foster care agreements. However, some foster carers had hoped that the foster care agreements would also include the responsibilities of the fostering services to them. We know that the practical, emotional and financial support that foster carers can expect to receive is crucial to their experience of foster care. Sharing that information is essential, and we believe that that should be covered in the standards development.

One issue that raised a lot of discussion and continues to do so is in part VI, which is on the particular duties of the responsible authority, where, in regulation 17, those duties relate to the health of children in foster placements. Regulation 17(1) states:

Regulation 17(2)(c) states:

Regulation 17(3) states that the responsible authority shall promote the well-being and development of children:

We are pleased to see that in the regulations but feel that it is important to ensure that adequate resources are made available for the regulations to be effective. There should be clarity on how such resources are accessed and paid for. One foster carer commented to us that it should be clear that it is for the authority to provide, both financially and practically, the items listed or at least ensure that they have provisions in place to ensure that foster carers can access them and that the cost of that should not at any point be transferred to a foster carer.

You will note that I have not gone through every regulation, and that is because we broadly welcome the regulations. Regulation 18 is entitled, "Support, training and information to be provided to foster parents". While we welcome the detailed provisions for training and support, foster carers always express concern about training programmes. They can find that the training does not necessarily meet their evolving needs, and there are calls for better consistency in training across the sector. Again, it is crucial to ensure that the necessary resources are available to deliver that support effectively, and it does not necessarily have to be delivered by one of the statutory agencies.

While it has taken 13 years to get from the last review to this point, we feel that the regulations are a really positive step. It is essential that we establish a clear timetable for regular reviews of all fostering services across the North, and we need to ensure that sufficient resources are allocated to support the implementation of the regulations, particularly when it comes to the provision of health and education services for children in care. As an organisation, we remain committed to supporting foster carers and ensuring that the children they look after have the best opportunities to thrive. We also look forward to continuing to work with the Committee and colleagues across the statutory and independent sector to ensure the successful implementation of the regulations and advocate for the necessary resources to make them truly effective.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I am happy to answer any questions that you might have.

Mr Avery Bowser (Action for Children): Good afternoon, everybody, and thanks for the opportunity to give evidence this afternoon. I am the fostering services manager at Action for Children, and I am responsible for our fostering service in Northern Ireland. Action for Children is one of the largest children's charities in the UK, and, this year, we celebrate 25 years of being in Northern Ireland, although our roots are in the 19th century in providing homes for children. Our other services are in the areas of family support, early years and young carers, and we provide homelessness services for young people aged 16 to 21. I speak to you today as a member of our leadership team. With Kathleen, I am also a member of the Reimagine Children’s Collective and of the reset and rebalance work stream of the reform board. I am a committee member, not a board member, of BASW Northern Ireland. I recently joined the voluntary and community sector panel of the joint forum, which is bringing forward the partnership agreement between the statutory sector and the voluntary sector.

Action for Children and other independent providers work closely with the Fostering Network; we are Fostering Network members. I had the opportunity to check in with independent colleagues yesterday because we were working together. As a group, we have considered the regulations regularly over the past decade. We welcome their imminent arrival and the improvement that they will enable. I endorse Kathleen's comments, which, I think, are reflective of the independent group as well. In the next few minutes, I want to pick out some additional issues for consideration and focus.

Having gone through the regulations again at speed in the past 24 hours, I can see areas that might need a little tweaking, but a lot of that can be picked up in the guidance and the implementation that flows from it. It is similar to the position that existed with the Adoption and Children Act. It needs to be got across the line. We need to get it out there and done so that we can start to get on with the other work, such as fostering standards, which we all regard as crucial

I have some thoughts about the implementation. There is implementation work to be done following the making of the regulations. The four independent fostering providers are all UK organisations, and they have been operating to English regulations and standards for many years. In many respects, therefore, the regulations will regularise what we are already doing. There is a big challenge for our colleagues in the trusts because they have not been operating to that kind of framework, and we all know the pressures that they are under. That has been well rehearsed at Committee over a number of months.

Implementation will be aided by statutory and independent providers working closely together. The independent providers have a lot of experience to offer our trust colleagues in the implementation of regulations and standards. For example, we met yesterday with a colleague from the South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust to work on processes for confirming long-term fostering placements. That was really productive and showed how, when we work constructively together, we can speed things along. It is also important to give credit to the Department, which has worked collaboratively with us all over a long time. There have been delays in getting here for lots of reasons, with which we are all familiar, but there has been good communication and a lot of co-working on the standards, which has been really useful.

Again, like Kathleen, I will pick out a few areas in the regulations. I welcome the clarity that Part VI brings to meeting the needs of children in care. As with the Adoption and Children Act, we need to lean into the fact that trusts cannot produce those outcomes in education on their own. It is a weakness of our legislative and governance arrangements that we tend to legislate in silos. There is not a similar ask on Education to deliver that, so we need to bear that in mind.

Regulation 26(6)(a) is about making complaints, and it is really important to emphasise the role of the Voice of Young People in Care (VOYPIC) in that. VOYPIC is essential to that being a living, breathing regulation. Its independence and advocacy is important for us, as an independent provider, but also for trusts in seeing that children get a proper process.

Regulation 40 is entitled, "Financial position". I have a small practical point on that. I am kind of familiar with that from registrations in Sure Start and working to support people. There will need to be some nuance in the way that those provisions are delivered because organisations will be of different sizes. If you take the regulation as it is, it is a bit of a blunt instrument.

Schedule 1 points out the need to sort out what we do with commissioning and procurement. We clearly need framing contractual arrangements for the independent group. We have that with the Western Health and Social Care Trust, and then we go on to make specific agreements for each child. That is the only trust with which we have that arrangement. With my joint forum hat on, I can see that that is a big area of work for the voluntary and statutory sectors.

In schedule 1(2)(4), there is a provision on children's records. There is a GDPR point in there that we need to look at. It sounds as if you are going to hand children's records back at the end of a placement. I do not think that that is the way that it will work in practice. Certainly, independent agencies will need to hold on to those records for their own scrutiny and in case they are asked for records as part of inquiries and stuff like that at a later point.

As Kathleen pointed out, the regulations are a welcome start, but there are lots of things still to be done in fostering, such as on review mechanisms, making representations, approval processes and the role and structure of panels. There is an awful lot implied in the regulations that is not worked out. We do not have a common understanding across trusts and independent providers on how we do those things. There is also the issue of agency decision makers, and a big issue for foster care is fees and allowances. There are then the challenges and recommendations laid out in Professor Jones's review, so there is a world of things to sort out.

The Committee may want to consider how it tracks the implementation of the regulations and the actions that will flow from that, some of which I have laid out, to ensure that things stay on track, that we see progress and, in particular, that the inspection arrangements work out for us as independent providers. However, as Kathleen rightly asked, are we moving towards a position where all fostering is inspected? How will the standards be arrived at and delivered?

The Chairperson (Mr McGuigan): Thank you very much, both of you. That was very detailed and much appreciated. I will dive straight into questions. I was not here when you were here in October, so I may touch on familiar stuff.

You welcomed the regulations and said that they are long overdue. I want to ask you about the current time frame from the time of application to becoming a foster parent. How big or otherwise is the waiting list? What positive impact will the regulations have on those two factors?

Ms Toner: That is not completely clear, and the answers from each agency will be slightly different. You will appreciate that an assessment process, from the time that someone lifts the phone to make an initial enquiry through to the point at which they go to a panel for approval, can take, in some ways, as long as it takes. I am not trying to give you a bad answer, but, as you will see from the regulations, a lot of things need to be taken into consideration. Information needs to be gathered, and you need to deal with other agencies in order to gather the appropriate information. What is in the regulations is not a million miles away from what is gathered in the process already, so there is nothing additional that is hugely onerous. The challenge that we have is in getting people to lift the phone and make the call in the first place and making sure that we have resources available in our services to respond and complete the process. What the regulations say about what the approval process should be just confirms what people already want to do. As a fostering manager who does that every day, Avery might want to come in on that.

Mr Bowser: There may be a difference between the experience of the independents and that of the trusts in that regard. For me, when we find people who want to foster and we make enquiries, we run with them very quickly. Again, however, it is a case of more speed, less haste. From beginning to end, from somebody picking up the phone to taking them through preparation and assessment and then working through a panel process to a decision at the end of it, six months is pretty good going. You can do it more quickly, but I know from experience that going more quickly does not always lead to a good result. Sometimes you can take longer, but that is dependent on an individual's circumstances and how much work needs to be done or if things change in the middle of the process. There may be a question there for trust colleagues about their current capacity. I suspect that our capacity, in the independent sector, is different from theirs and that we are able to move at greater speed in that respect.

Ms Toner: The other thing to note is that there are 4,000 looked-after children here, 80% of whom are looked after by foster carers. That number has continued to increase. We know that, in the past few years, the number of foster carers coming into the system is outweighed by the number of carers who are leaving. That is and continues to be a challenge.

I am really hopeful that this framework and the framework that is aligned to it with the standards will answer some of the challenges and concerns that foster carers have been raising for the last number of years around support. When they encounter difficulties, whom do they go to and what is their recourse? They need to know that there is a much clearer framework. That robust framework can be included in the promotion of fostering to potential new recruits who are coming forward or even, perhaps, to people who have been foster carers in the past and want to come back in.

We know that some people do it for a lifetime; we have foster carers who have been fostering for 30 or 40 years. We also have people who do it at particular points in their lives. For example, they might have a five-year window in which they do not have kids of their own at home. Alternatively, some people decide to take some time out. People can come in and out of fostering, and the fact that we can now say that we have a regulatory framework and that we are developing standards might attract some people back. We can show people what their expectations can be, which is a really positive move.

Mr Bowser: Other work is about to start. In the past week, we have been invited to the task and finish group on creating a Northern Ireland fostering assessment. We all tend to use what was the British Association of Adoption and Fostering (BAAF) "form F", as it is known in the trade, but, again, in Northern Ireland, we never really settled, between the trusts and all the independent providers, the question, "Are we using this form, or are we doing it that way?", so that is a positive thing. For years, the independent group has been asking, "Can we come to the table?", because we want to be helpful. We see more of that. We have all been part of organisations that have been working to Ofsted standards and the standards in Wales and Scotland — we have had to absorb those, and our organisations tend to make them the organisational standards — so this is not a big jump for us.

The Chairperson (Mr McGuigan): Kathleen, I noted that you mentioned Part VI, regulation 17, which requires that each child receive the "individual support, aids and equipment" and assessments etc that they need. You rightly said that resources need to follow. Are those assessments of need happening?

Ms Toner: Every child should have an assessment of need, and what is determined in their care plan and the expectations that there are should obviously be noted in that. One of the challenges is in how that is delivered. I will give you an example from education. Since 2006, we have had, in various iterations, a service called "Fostering Attainment and Achievement" (FAA). That provides educational supports to children and young people and to their foster carers. The subtext of that is that foster carers are primary educators. We deliver a wide range of training, information and advice — there is a huge summer programme for children and young people in foster care — and we make available a range of resources, including computers and tuition. We do that, but it is only a small part of what is being done. A range of agencies need to do it.

This year, we have had a small increase — 4·5% — in resource. That is the first uplift that we have had since we got our newest contract in 2018. During that time the number of children who have come into care has significantly increased, so we are doing more with less. We are not a statutory agency, so we are not charged with ensuring that every need of every child is met, but there are different ways in which needs can be met. They are sometimes met through the third sector and sometimes through education, as Avery said, so we need to make sure that we have the resources to meet those needs. We are well aware of the challenges in the health system in particular, and we need to make sure that children and young people can access that. That is about resource and waiting lists and the difficult decisions that have to be taken by those who hold the purse strings, but, if it is in a child's plan that they need something, it is imperative that that is resourced.

The Chairperson (Mr McGuigan): Can we be clear that you are currently receiving what you are asking for but an expansion will require greater resources than you have?

Ms Toner: I sincerely hope that resources are available to implement the regulations and ensure that the health and education needs of every child, as outlined in the regulations, are met.

The Chairperson (Mr McGuigan): I read Part III of the regulations, which, the Department states, sets out:

I assume that that means that, in an emergency, the child will go to another family member or something like that. I would like a bit of detail on that. What constitutes an emergency? Where does the child go? How important to the assessment is the expansion of an emergency foster care placement from 12 to 16 weeks?

Ms Toner: I will let Avery answer some of that, but, initially, emergency placements are exactly that: something happens, and a child has to be removed to a place of safety. Sometimes, that is with a family member who has stepped up to look after the child, but there are checks, balances and assessments that need to be done at that point.

We have foster carers across all of the providers who — "specialise" is the wrong word — do emergency placements for children in those circumstances. That could be the middle of the night, and they will have the experience of dealing with that. I often think of one foster carer who has a smallholding and, when children are brought to that foster carer for an emergency placement, there are ducks, hens, dogs, cats and all sorts of things. For a child who has experienced a real trauma, that can be a comforting place to be insofar as you can provide comfort in that traumatic experience. That is what you are talking about as an emergency, as opposed to planned circumstances where you know that, perhaps, children are going to be removed. Often, it is a combination of all of the above. Obviously, in an emergency situation, you would like to provide a quick place of safety for that child and ensure that you go into a planned process to make sure that they can be matched with someone and that they can maybe have a more stable set of circumstances moving forward.

The Chairperson (Mr McGuigan): Thank you. I have a final question, and it is probably more for the Department. Are there any issues with and concerns about the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority? Obviously, resources are a key issue. From your side, have you any concerns or issues about its lack of resources or its ability to do the work?

Ms Toner: It is a new area of work, and it is really important. For us, there is an opportunity for real learning. In taking this forward, we very much welcome that. About nine years ago, we met RQIA and talked through with it. At that point, it was still mooted that the regulations would be passed. We explored some of the concerns about its capacity. My understanding is that its resource has been enhanced. I think that RQIA was involved in the development of the standards process with, as I said, a range of stakeholders. Some of those relationships have already started to develop and evolve, and, as Avery said, the independent agencies, particularly Action for Children and Barnardo’s, provide a range of services very frequently and have good relationships with RQIA.

Mr Bowser: I am expecting a different regime. I certainly would not have welcomed an Ofsted-type regime, which is punitive. The conversations were constructive, and my experience of RQIA inspection is that it is pretty constructive and there is dialogue and it is designed to be helpful, as opposed to having some simple rating scale.

I will come back to your question on emergencies, because there are two ideas here. Before Christmas, Colm McCafferty and Maura Dargan were here, and they were asked a bit about that. It is about, in particular, kinship, and there are processes for that. What is in here is around — we have experience of this — where you have a carer who is registered and approved but you propose to put a child in who does not match their approval. The arrangements for that are clear. I have always worked to those standards, because they are English standards, so, as a manager, I have six days' grace and then there are certain things that we have to do. So there is good stuff for foster carers in providing some protections and some expectations that the fostering provider and the placing authority will do assessment and not just leave it hanging because the child is there and everything is OK.

Miss McAllister: Thank you, Kathleen and Avery. Sorry that I am not with you in person. I have a few questions.

I will follow on from what Philip was asking about the duties of the authority. I think that you said that that is regulation 17. I was a bit unclear, so perhaps you can clear it up for me. On adequate resources, Kathleen, you said that you make those resources available if they are in the child's care plan. I know that you are not a statutory service. Do those resources come from your own fundraising, or are they provided by whichever trust the child is under so that their plan can be made? If it is an educational issue with their care plan, is that provided for by the Department of Education? Is that who meets those requirements, and is it not enough?

Ms Toner: It is about £1·5 million a year for the service that we have. You will appreciate that, compared with the Education budget, that is a drop in the ocean. The project came about as the result of a policy in 2006 called "Care Matters", which had resources attached to it. It developed that service, and the service addressed foster carers as primary educators, recognising their role in taking kids to school, doing homework, talking to teachers and going to parent-teacher meetings. That was delivered through the third sector and us as a membership organisation, because we have contact with foster carers. It is a Northern Ireland-wide service, covering the whole region. It is funded, and we are commissioned by the Department of Health to deliver the service on its behalf. We have a contract to deliver that. That is one area of additional resource.

It is not necessarily about just formal education; schools cover formal education, and we can add value through that service by providing things like one-to-one tuition for a child in a foster carer's home. We do different types of tuition for about 500 children a year. When you consider that there are 4,000 children in care, 80% of whom are in foster care and not all of whom are in school, that is a significant resource that we are able to add.

Once we come to the end of our resource, we work closely with trusts on approval around that. We do not randomly decide what we will deliver. We have mechanisms, through the personal education plan, and we liaise with the trusts' social workers on whether it is appropriate and whether it fits. We do not have access to children's care plans, so we would not, for example, put something in place for a child with special educational needs that sits outwith what has been agreed for them. We do not make those decisions in isolation. We very much work in partnership with the statutory services. Ultimately, that responsibility does not rest with us, but that is one mechanism that has evolved over the years to add value that is outside the formal education system. Extern and VOYPIC have been mentioned, and there is a range of organisations that deliver other services along those lines. The thing is that they all have finite resources, and, ultimately, the responsibility rests with the authority to provide those, not with us.

Miss McAllister: That is helpful. If it has been noted in the care plan of a child who is in foster care that they need a bit of extra mental health support and if the foster family is advocating that — we have come across that situation — whose responsibility is that? Do you find that your networks come under the same child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) system, or are you able to provide a service to the children for whom the foster carers advocate mental health support? That is an area that we come across that probably needs an increase in help.

Ms Toner: We do not deliver anything related to mental health. We have a kinship service. We have just received funding from the National Lottery to roll that out over the next three years. That is very much trauma-informed and provides opportunities for kinship carers to come together and have mutual support. Some of what we can do within the services that we have is to signpost. That comes back to the child social worker; in those circumstances, they are the primary person who looks after that child's needs and makes referrals, where appropriate, to other services — services that, we know, are under pressure.

The regulation also talks about equipment and various things to do with mental health. A range of things is needed by each child. An individual approach is very much taken to each child who is removed from their family, and each child will have a care plan. It is about meeting those needs and the responsibility that this now places to promote children's well-being and health and what that looks like, even with regard to leisure services. How does, say, a trust ensure the well-being of a child in foster care through its leisure facilities? We can do some of that through our services, perhaps by providing access to leisure centres, but there is something much broader about how we work as a society. There are examples in other countries and some here, actually, of leisure centres that will waive costs for fostering families. There are different collaborative ways. However, the substantive area and responsibility rests with the statutory agency.

Mr Bowser: There is something here about primary, really fundamental needs, as opposed to peripheral needs as well and things that you might look to a voluntary organisation or a charitable donation to pick up. Is there enough resource in the system? Well, you have heard in the Health Committee a number of times that there is not enough resource. Your question implies that about CAMHS.

We all know the problems. Yes, there is and there is not a bespoke CAMHS service or therapeutic support services in the trusts. Are they enough? No. Are the services enough for children with complex needs, whether they are in care or at home with their birth families? No. Are the psychological, learning disability and educational support services joined up enough? No. Those things are compounded for children in care because they lack those parental relationships. Certainly, one of the things that we do in our service — we specialise in long-term fostering — is create that sense of family and connection and the sense that there is somebody in your corner.

Something that we probably all do as independents is put in additional money, whether that is through voluntary income for us. We have supplemented it at points. We all have different internal therapeutic arrangements involving buying in psychology time and those things, but, again, sometimes that is to try to make up for the deficit out there in the system.

If, underlying your question, you are asking whether regulation 17 implies or has a resource implication, the answer is, "Yes, of course it does". Is it cost-neutral? No. Is it really good? Yes, because it really sets out clearly what some of the expectations are. That is good from a children's rights perspective and the point of view of all of us who are tracking it and asking, "Are we doing what we should for the most vulnerable children in society?".

Miss McAllister: Thank you very much. That is helpful for me.

My final question is about the annual review. I think that Kathleen, in particular, said that foster carers had said that the annual review did not reflect circumstances. Can you be a bit more specific, in order to help my understanding of the concerns or even the views welcoming that regulation on annual reviews? Can you expand a bit on that, please?

Ms Toner: I suppose that, if you equate it to us, the annual review is basically your end-of-year appraisal almost, but, during that year, there are regular monthly visits from social workers, and, at the end of the year, there is an opportunity to review from both the foster carer's perspective and the agency's how things have gone. Certainly, my understanding of it is that people often find it helpful. Again, it depends on how it is done, Nuala, in many respects. They can find it to be a learning opportunity. They can find that it really develops their relationship with their service. Our consultation was done as we were emerging from COVID. People were finding that sometimes those things were not happening, so there was a bit of a loss. There was also a sense of, "Well, we have got on fine without you".

Organisationally, we recognise that annual reviews are crucial. They are that touchpoint every year. We think that the standards development will help with that implementation and thinking through what they should look like, where a foster carer can be involved and how they can, perhaps, contribute more consistently to them. However, certainly, in the consultation that we did, while a number of people felt that this did not necessarily reflect their experience and their family lives, there is a strong argument to have them done annually and to have them reflected in regulations. Standards might enable us to practically implement it slightly differently where appropriate.

Mr Bowser: It also reflects experience of the quality of annual reviews and, maybe, pressures in the trusts from not having sufficient numbers of social workers to do reviews to a quality that you would expect. We do annual reviews, and I view them as an important part of what we do. They are a positive experience for carers. At the first review after approval, we bring that carer back to our panel, which is generally a positive experience. It is also a good quality assurance mechanism for both sides. It is a protection for foster carers. We review them annually, and we bring them back to the panel every third year, which is another way of providing quality assurance. Our panels are independently chaired, and the majority of members are independent, which is another mechanism for promoting accountability and protection for foster carers.

Miss McAllister: Thank you very much. That was helpful. Thank you for the presentations. Following on from this session, we will have more questions for the Department.

Mrs Dillon: Thank you for your presentations. I am a bit like you, Kathleen, in that I have been hearing about the regulations for over 10 years.

If an applicant foster carer fails the approval process with one fostering agency, is that information shared? Is there a process around that? If so, with whom is the information shared, and what is the process?

Ms Toner: I will let you take that one.

Mr Bowser: There is a simple answer: yes, and it should be. The regulations spell that out, which is useful. We have always had that kind of process anyway. If you have failed with one provider and you go to a new one, one of the things that you will be asked is whether you have applied anywhere else. The provider will check that out. It comes back to record retention and to holding information, even about enquiries, for a good period of time so that you know whether someone has been to other agencies.

Certainly, I do not expect that we will have difficulties locally, but folk have come to us who might have fostered or been through an approval process in England. You try to get information on that, but the number of agencies means that it can be a bit like the Wild West there at times. You cannot get the agencies to provide you with the information, which is not really good enough. Certainly, locally, we exchange information about whether people have been with a provider before, have been through a full approval process or have not been fully through it. You get feedback, and that is part of the assessment process going forward.

Ms Toner: One of the challenges is that we are a UK-wide organisation. One of the things that we looked at and recommended to the review of children's care in England was the development of a register of foster carers. There is reference to a register in the regulations, but it is not in the same context. It talks about each agency having a register of foster carers so that they have up-to-date information. However, when we talk about a register, we are looking more at something that makes your foster carer registration portable. It would be about having somewhere that you could go to in order to ensure that a foster carer is approved. There are ten or twenty times the number of foster carers in England that there are here. Moving can be a challenge. It can present not only difficulties for the foster carer but challenges around safeguarding. We have advocated strongly for a register along the lines of how the Northern Ireland Social Care Council registers people. That presents some challenges.

For foster carers, it is often about the information that is held about them. You have recognised, Chair, that some of the detailed information that is required to be held — things about your personality and your family — is highly sensitive. The key to it is ensuring that foster carers feel confident that arrangements are in place to protect them and that the information is being shared only with their permission, if they are moving on to another agency, because it is highly confidential information.

Mrs Dillon: For clarity, is it really about whether a person voluntarily discloses that they have applied to another provider? For example, if I were to apply to one agency that rejected my application, I could go on to another agency. If they were to ask, "Have you been a foster carer before or applied to be one?", and I were to say, "No", they would not know that I had. Is that right?

Mr Bowser: Yes, pretty much.

Mrs Dillon: I suppose that my question was, "Is there a process?", but there is not. That is what you are talking about.

Ms Toner: That is where the register would come in.

Mrs Dillon: Who would own the register?

Ms Toner: That is open to discussion, Linda. You might want an external body to look at that. In England, that makes sense, but, in Northern Ireland, given its size, it may not. We had conversations about that some years ago. It is probably some way off for us. I understand that, in Wales, they are close to developing that with an external body that they will establish. We could look at creating mechanisms in Northern Ireland around where it would be held. It might be held in an existing body, for example.

Mr Bowser: There is a bit about what portability means. Does that mean that you have to accept a person because they have been approved somehow, just as a social worker is registered and can move? That does not quite work. Two things are true at the same time. Somebody may not be suitable to foster, and they may go round various agencies to see whether they can get in through the door. You want to protect against that. Equally, I have carers who have had a bad experience with another agency, perhaps with the person who did the assessment, so they came to us. We know about that because they have told us. We looked at the situation, we assessed them, and they have gone on to be great carers. Those two things are true at the same time. That is the grey area in what we do.

I understand where your question is coming from — it is about a check — but a fostering assessment cannot be only about self-reporting. You will be looking for referees. A close family member might say, "Oh, they went to foster before". It is hard for a person to get into a fostering assessment and not let on that they have done that. It is not a five-minute process. We spend weeks and weeks with people. You look at people's lives in a lot of depth.

Ms Toner: The other thing is that we have what is called a "transfer protocol". We have had it for some time as a kind of voluntary protocol. If someone is with one trust and then moves and wants to go to another, there is a protocol for what that looks like and how you might do it. It is voluntary. The Fostering Network evolved it many years ago. We have various iterations of it in different countries, and it has been updated a few times. That is another mechanism to ensure that people do not just move around. There is a process. That is one of the things about being in a small country: as Avery said, once you gather in the information, you also have to put additional checks in place. You do not just accept all the information.

Mr Bowser: If somebody has approached their local trust to foster and been through the local authority check, as it is called, that will come back. The trust will say, "Oh, we know them. They applied to foster with us". I can see where the holes are, but that is also why you are thorough.

Mrs Dillon: Thank you. I appreciate that. I may come back to you for a further conversation on that to get my head round it.

I have another quick question. The new regulations place a lot of responsibility on registered providers: procedures for missing children, foster parent training, complaints handling and children's guidelines. Without standardised guidelines, how do we ensure that there is no differentiation and get uniformity across the providers?

Ms Toner: That is where standards come into play.

Mrs Dillon: That is what I am saying. Is that happening?

Ms Toner: We do not have standards at the moment. They are in development.

Mrs Dillon: It is not happening. I understand that we do not have standards at the moment, but there is nothing —.

Ms Toner: There is nothing to gauge it against.

Mrs Dillon: Will the standards ensure uniformity?

Mr Bowser: Think of this as the end of the beginning. Standards alone will not deliver it. There will be lots of other little areas in which we need to start developing Northern Ireland guidance. We are working off the 1995 volume 3, which is next to useless now.

There is pretty good understanding across the agencies of what we do. This is about starting to codify that properly. It is really important to get this moving, because the standards are well worked on and are nearly ready to roll. There will be other things as well, such as panels. That is a topic in its own right. That is my pitch: we need to get into the habit of all working together and not just having a trust conversation over here. The thing that has been reflected here is that it is not about five trusts doing five different things but having proper regional stuff that sits below the legislation. Fostering is incredibly complicated. There are so many moving parts. That is why it needs to be regulated as well.

Mrs Dillon: I appreciate that point. You are dead right: that is exactly why it needs to be regulated. It should have happened years ago.

Mr Donnelly: Thank you very much for that. You seem to be happy that there will be regulations, so —.

Mr Bowser: I am not saying that just because my colleagues are behind me. [Laughter.]

Mr Donnelly: It is encouraging to hear. Regulations absolutely should be there.

You mentioned that you consulted 60 foster carers. Was there a good level of co-production?

Ms Toner: In the development of the regulations?

Mr Donnelly: Yes.

Ms Toner: It has been ongoing for a long time, and there have been lots of conversations and discussions. That was specifically related to the new draft regulations. The regulations were devised in about 2014, and, because they then sat for a long time, the Department decided to do a review that updated them. The Department then wanted to do a short consultation.

There has been a lot of activity over the past three or four years. We have had consultation on the Adoption and Children Act (Northern Ireland) 2022. We have had consultation recently on a range of factors. My colleague Nikki led on a recent consultation on the standards. We have worked with colleagues in the Department of Health really closely in that regard. When we do consultation, departmental officials will often come with us and outline the information. We had 60 people in various rooms, but the information is iterative; it gathers momentum. We did a substantial piece of work on the children's services review where we consulted really widely with our foster carers. Some of the comments that I have made today are based on that consultation.

Part of our role, as a charity and a membership organisation, is to reflect and amplify the views of foster carers and, at the same time, work with our colleagues in the Department of Health and the trusts to share trends and general comments in order to make sure that there are mechanisms for foster carers to have their voice heard. I am conscious today that I do not have a foster carer with me. It is really important that you folk hear the voice of foster carers. It is absolutely central to our vision that we make sure that we understand the views of a range of people who are involved. Foster carers are not a generic group; they are very different, although we know that there are some general characteristics that attract them to fostering.

Over the past four or five years in particular — perhaps post COVID — there has been a real move to be more collaborative to make sure that we hear the voice of children with lived experience and foster carers. Organisations such as ours have a role in trying to pull that together and making sure that we push it out to the right places.

Mr Donnelly: Was there anything that came up through those consultations that did not make it in? Are there any specific omissions that you want to highlight?

Ms Toner: There are probably things that have been added in. I was just going back through our consultation response. I think that I used the term "robust" in my introductory comments. It was a robust consultation, and it was a robust report that we submitted. Quite a lot of the things that we highlighted have been picked up and included in the new draft, which is always heartening to see.

Mr Donnelly: Absolutely; your voice needs to be heard in this, as does the voice of those with lived experience.

You mentioned the concerning rates of retention: how many are we losing? I think that you said at one point that we are losing more foster carers than are coming into the system.

Ms Toner: I brought this to the Committee last time. I was going to bring my notes with me, but I did not, so, forgive me, I cannot remember the numbers. It is only really in the past couple of years that we have started to gather that information.

Again, that is where a register would come into its own, because we would know what those attrition rates are. Certainly, with Ofsted — I appreciate what Avery says, in that it tends to be very data-oriented — we can go on and see immediately how many foster carers have left the system. The year before last, there were about 400 foster carers who had been fostering in the previous year but were not fostering at the end of that year. One of the final comments that I made at our last Committee meeting was that, if I came back in a year's time and we had seen something similar, that would be a real challenge.

Retention is as important as recruitment. Fostering is a huge commitment for people, which you will appreciate, having looked at the assessment process. This is a substantial set of regulations. It is almost as big as primary legislation. That is to put a framework in place for foster carers. There is an awful lot involved. There is something around ensuring that we have that framework and that it, hopefully, will give some structure to fostering services going forward.

Mr Donnelly: Is that a driving factor in the rate of non-retention?

Ms Toner: There are lots of reasons why people do not remain. Next week, we will publish the report of our state of the nations foster care survey, which covers all four countries. I will send it to the Clerk to share with you. I gave some advance notice of it last time and said that it makes for quite difficult reading.

The reasons why people leave include their not feeling valued or not feeling they that they are a part of the team around the child. That can be because of staffing resources, such as people not being able to support them when they need support. When people are looking after children in a complex environment, if they do not feel that they have that support, some will just leave. We know that people do not leave when one wee thing goes wrong; it tends to take time. Emerging from COVID has been challenging for lots of people as well. More and more children are presenting with, perhaps, more complex needs, and, sometimes, because we have fewer and fewer foster carers and placement options, more children are placed with those foster carers, and that can be a challenge as well. In many respects, the reasons why people leave are as complex as the reasons why they join. Certainly, one of the primary reasons is that people do not necessarily feel valued in their role. Remuneration is a factor as well.

Mr Bowser: Matching is important. Again, I do not think that, collectively, as the five trusts and the four providers, we get together to look at how we can match better and more quickly and use the collective resource collectively as opposed to a hit-and-miss way of doing things. It is an unavoidable reality that the role of fostering social worker or supervising social worker is really important. It is the same as children's social work: high caseloads lead to poor support. We have a good retention level, but I have staff who have very low caseloads, so they are able to give intensive support. That is a key factor, and, again, it goes back, to the services that we were talking about in regulation 17: when those are being delivered and your child is getting the support services that they need, that will obviously have an impact. The broader point is that there is a huge variation in fees and allowances, the question of whether we are keeping pace with GB and all those kinds of things. The cost of living has certainly been quite a factor in English statistics. People just simply cannot afford to foster, so it is a complex mix.

Mr Donnelly: It strikes me that you have people who are well intentioned, really want to foster and have done it for a while; then, perhaps, having put up with the situation, they have found themselves unable to continue, which —.

Ms Toner: Yes. That is absolutely fair, and we need to focus our energies. However, taking part in the consultation on the standards, we had a number of people who were new and a number of people who had been fostering for 35 years and had rehearsed a lot of the challenges. That is why I think that, if you were to meet them, you would hear directly from them what some of the challenges are. However, one of the very final questions that we asked them was this: "Why do you continue to foster, and will you continue to foster?" Without exception, every single one of them said that it was because they love it and because, in a sense, it is a lifestyle. It is something that people do that they really get a lot from. They stick with it, and that is not OK. It is not OK for people to just stick with it through thick and thin. It is important that they do, but I think that some of these provisions will enable us to improve the quality of their experience so that when they hit a wall, we can actually keep them on board.

Mr Donnelly: Thank you.

Ms Flynn: I will follow on from Linda's question about how the new regulations and measures can be rolled out consistently. I know that there are already issues, as you have pointed out, on a trust-by-trust basis and with the register of providers. Do you have any opinions or thoughts on how you will measure the success of these new regulations? I am thinking about how you could involve feedback from some of the children and young people themselves. You mentioned that a lot of consultation has already been carried out, which is brilliant, because it has fed into all of this. Do you plan to consult further or have an online questionnaire on how the new regulations are rolled out in real terms and what that will mean for the families, the foster parents and the kids? Have you had any thoughts on that process?

Ms Toner: It will take a little bit of time. There is an implementation period for the independent foster providers to become registered etc. The standards will be inspected by RQIA. It will have a process that will establish metrics, and it will inspect against those. In the next session, colleagues in the Department might be able to answer that more fully than I can. Certainly, on standards, some of the questions that we have been asked are about how we make sure that this is happening and that there is some kind of a process for people to feed in to.

It says in one of the regulations that foster carers can be invited to speak to RQIA as part of the inspection process, so that is available. As an organisation, we are so delighted to see the introduction of regulations, especially when I think about my colleagues elsewhere and whether they have any kind of consultation or discussion about what the regulations currently mean for them. It just becomes part of that framework, and, therefore, it will be for their pinch points. We will hear feedback through our advice service, for example. We have a Northern Ireland advice service and a legal insurance scheme. We also have a whole variety of ways of communicating with our foster carers and our members generally, so we will see patterns emerging. As with any policy development or policy implementation, if, over the six months after the regs are implemented, we get lots of calls saying, "Oh my goodness, this is really challenging", that will give us an indication that something might not be quite right.

I chair the independent foster providers' forum, and, as I said, the independents, the trusts and carers are all members, so I occupy quite an unusual space. We are getting information from a variety of different places. I also think that surveys have been really helpful. Our state of the nations foster care survey has given us a huge amount of very rich data, so we know what the challenges will be over the next period. We will now start to look at what else we will put in place to gather information for the next time. That was a very long-winded answer. Sorry.

Ms Flynn: No, that is great; it was very informative. Thanks very much. Finally, could you elaborate a bit on the challenges that you foresee for the trusts?

Mr Bowser: I have gone through this. When I was reading it again, I was saying, "Yes, we do that, we do that and we do that." Then, for a couple of points, I have written "actions". It is not that we do not do that, it is just that nobody has asked us to report on it, so I will have to put a process in place. I was talking to a trust colleague yesterday, and they know that and that they have a governance issue around it. That creates a resource issue: people will have to do the work. There are extra tasks here and processes that the trusts may not have embedded in the same way, because the regs read like English regs. My organisation embeds English regs into what it does, so, for me, that is just business as normal. That is a lot easier. That is why I said that there is a real opportunity to work together. The other three providers and I look at each other and go, "We know what this is like. We do this". That would be helpful. It ties in to Danny's question in a way: if we are all doing the same thing, that is possibly helpful to retention and stuff like that, because there is then a much more common experience, and we are working to the same things.

You asked Kathleen a question. When preparing for this, I was thinking, "Yes, this is about implementation, not just getting it across the line today". This is a question that you may want to ask my colleagues: what is the review plan, and what will that look like? Again, my pitch is this: let us do things a bit differently from we have done in the past, let us be very collaborative about that, and let us have everybody who is involved reviewing it, rather than it being a trust exercise or a departmental exercise.

Ms Flynn: Thanks very much, Avery.

Mrs Dodds: Thank you so much for the presentation. It is really important. If I am right, Kathleen and Avery, these regs have been in the pipeline for many, many years. I have two questions. First, in light of the emerging challenges for foster parents, will the regs be out of date, or will they need updating as soon as they come in? I was talking to Colm McCafferty last week, and he told me that, in the Southern Trust, there are 700 children who are looked after and that that number has doubled the in the last 10 years. A high percentage of those children were there because of domestic violence or abuse. They are shocking statistics, and those are really challenging scenarios for foster parents. Will the regs be out of date? I understand that you are keen on a regulatory framework. I am happy enough with that, and I take your very sensible advice on that. That is fine. How much will be dependent on an effective review, and when would that review be held?

Ms Toner: Diane, if these were the regulations that were developed after the RQIA review in 2013, I would say no, they are not fit for purpose, but a further piece of work was done a couple of years ago. It was not a root-and-branch review, but we can certainly see substantial differences. That has been updated. Opportunities to feed in to further changes are really important, but these regulations do not stand alone. The thing for me is that we now have our primary legislation, which is the Adoption and Children Act. Standards are crucial. For me, these regulations were always going to trigger the development of standards, and it has been really helpful that we have had an opportunity to develop the standards in tandem in anticipation of these coming on board, because the standards will be the elements of the work.

The other thing is developing guidance around this. Guidance developed as a result of the implementation of the regulations will be crucial. Guidance was developed in Wales recently when it introduced new regulations. That guidance is really user-friendly, and the style of the guidance that has been developed has been really easily understood by foster carers, agencies and children and young people. We often go down the route of doing a separate document for children and young people, and I am not saying that we should not do that, but I have looked at the guidance in Wales, and it is incredibly accessible, so there is something in how we take that forward.
What we have now is a package of measures, and there will be ongoing work to be done around that. I think that the regs have shifted. I can certainly see significant changes from the first round of them. I was involved in the development of the standards work, and it was very different from other work that we have been involved in. It is very child-centred, very much recognises the role of foster carers and takes on board the therapeutic frameworks that we have been developing.

It is quite Northern Ireland-focused. Avery has mentioned that it brings us into line with England and Wales in particular, but the standards look a bit different because they have been developed here. It has been very much a collaborative process, and we will put a lot of our energy into how those standards evolve. On Órlaithí's question, that is where we will see some of the challenges, as people's experiences may not reflect those standards.

Mr Bowser: It is a good due diligence question for the process. However, if you want reassurance, we are good. It is a good set of regulations. Again, it is where I got to with the Adoption and Children Act: do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. If there are fundamental flaws in the regulations, it is easier to correct them because they are regulations. I looked at the nuances of the wording, and I thought, "Yes, but you might sort that in guidance", and that is the critical bit. You want people to work together on the other side of the legislation to make workable day-to-day arrangements that will take it forward. However, without the legislation, there is no enabler, and we have been waiting to land for a very long time. If we can get down, that is good.

Mrs Dodds: Will the regulations, guidance and standards be introduced as a package? Will it ensure that looked-after children across all trusts in Northern Ireland can expect the same standard of care and provision?

Ms Toner: The officials in the next session may be able to answer the timetabling question better than we can. I am not sure that I can give you the right answer, Diane.

Mrs Dodds: It is important to get the regulations, guidance and standards out together, and I will ask the officials the same question. What is your sense?

Ms Toner: My sense, when we looked at this previously, was that the regulations would trigger the development of standards, and there would be a process after that. The standards are already in draft form. They are there, and quite a bit of work has been done. We have draft regulations and draft standards, and the front of the schedule indicates that, once they have been signed off, there will be a six-month implementation period. I would like to see the standards implemented around the same time so that we can move forward with a completely new platform. However, I do not know the absolute answer.

There are still a lot of other factors at play in whether the regulations and standards will ensure that every child has a consistent experience, and you can never absolutely determine that. However, once the framework is in place, we will be in a much better place to ensure consistency than we are today, because we have nothing to measure it against.

Mrs Dodds: Yes.

Mr Bowser: There are things in the regulations that put duties on all providers, whether that is a trust or an independent provider. There is a specific regulation of independent providers, and, as Kathleen said, our understanding from conversations with the Department and the RQIA is that the standards apply to everybody. We will move to a common framework, and my expectation is that I will wait to see the final draft, which is about minor corrections, not substantive work.

Mrs Dodds: OK. Thank you. I am interested in that because I suspect that some of the consistency will depend on the resources devoted by each individual trust. In Northern Ireland, we need to correct the inequality of access across the five trusts, not just for fostered children but for respite care and other services. Again, we will leave that to the next session.

Mr Robinson: At the previous session with you, we were told that 419 foster carers had left the system. Will it be a similar number for 2024, and will the framework turn that ship around?

Ms Toner: I do not think that we will see an immediate shift. As I said, there are a number of reasons why people leave and a number of reasons why people join, so I do not think that you will see an immediate shift that will mean that you can automatically determine, "That is because of this framework." We need to take a slightly longer-term view on that. There has been a really concentrated approach. I have been in this role for 13 years. There was a flurry of activity around the time that these regulations were developed, and then, for a long time, there was very little activity. What we have seen post pandemic and with the review of children's services is evidence that a lot of work is being done and that people are working together.

None of these things happen without resource and the will and vision to make them happen. The 'Care Matters' policy document in 2006 was quite visionary in many respects. It came with resources attached and made some substantial changes. It developed the advocacy service and peer mentoring service in VOYPIC. It developed our Fostering Attainment and Achievement service. A range of things in statutory agencies was funded as a result of that policy work. It would be naive to say that things could happen without the resources.

We need to resolve the issue of remuneration and equity of remuneration for all foster carers. I am a member of the fostering work stream, and that is one of the core areas that the group is looking at. However, there are still a number of moving parts that we need to continue to keep a keen eye on.

Mr Robinson: Thanks, Kathleen.

The Chairperson (Mr McGuigan): Thank you very much, Kathleen and Avery. That was very useful. We appreciate your coming before us.