Minutes of Meeting of National Network of Aftercare Workers 8th March 2005

Focus Ireland, Georges Hill, Dublin.

Chair: Linda Duggan

Minutes: Trena Ratcliffe

Present: Alan Hendrick, Fiona Purcell, Tina Diggins, Martina Okeeffe,

Brid Feeney, Clare O Neill, Deidre Kenny, Maurice Fenton, Ray Rogers,

Sinead Lynch, Sally Scott, Niamh Loughnane, Trena Ratcliffe.

(Nathan Corcoran, Sharon Byrne, Alison Gardiner – students on placement in Crosscare).

Apologies: Evelyn Ward and Helen Kavanagh.

The Minutes of the last meeting were read. The change in dates for the meetings for the rest of the year were highlighted.

8th March 2005

May 10th 2005

June 27th2005

September 6th 2005

November 8th 2005

Alan gave a report as treasurer there is a balance of €555 in our aftercare account.

Maurice although he has changed his job will continue to look after the web site. Maurice will change all the contact addresses. Galway Aftercare Service has no email so they will need to receive minutes by post.

The possibility of Mike Stein an expert in Aftercare Research and Development, Practice and Policy from York University coming and doing a workshop with us was discussed. A list was compiled of topics we would like Mike Stein to cover in his training workshop.

  • Ending the relationship with young people
  • Motivating young people
  • Care plans / aftercare plans
  • Roles and responsibilities of other services.
  • Outcomes and Recommendations
  • Aftercare Groups
  • Best model of provision
  • Linkages with other agencies
  • Special needs.

There was some discussion about ending relationships. Young people are our greatest resource. It was suggested we need to be working on building up community and family supports. Sally talked about the use of exit interviews. They sometimes see you as a friend on their terms.

Sally will talk to Mike about what these topics and what it would cost us for him to do the training.

Pat Whelan and Ann Farrell from the Irish Association of Foster Carers came and gave a presentation to the meeting. They highlighted the fact that there is no standardisation of services across the country. In some if they have a recognised disability they will be supported after 18 in other areas no support is given.

In some cases it would be possible for a young person to be set up in supported lodgings with a new family but not to pay a supported lodging payment to the current foster family. Generally speaking if a young person is in third level they are well supported. There are 350 placed in foster care who have an intellectual disability.

If there is a disability service in the area such as John of Gods or St. Michael’s House

The young person can be linked in to disability services. In some rural areas there is no disability service. In other cases young people have undiagnosed clinical depression and would not manage on their own and have no place to go. Young people coming to 18 they don’t know social worker so how can they refer? Other young people don’t want to access aftercare even though they might need it. No resources for aftercare problems are being identified that should have been dealt with before the young person was 18.

In Europe there is an adult placement scheme. In Australia you are given support until the age of 29 years old.

What can we do? - Could we bring the players together. In many areas there is no structured aftercare linked to foster care. IFCA have good relationship with the Dept of Health. We could look at linking with IAYPIC and Education and Welfare Board to try and standardise nationally the policy and lobby for access to disability services nationally. We also need to lobby for resources to be put behind the policy. We need to put forward pilot financial packages. Sally agreed to send to IFCA lists of payments they have in place.

We need to audit how many people? What are their difficulties? Recommendations and costs. SSI did exercise but they did not talk to foster parents.

We can – Exchange list of payments, List of aftercare teams, List of regional reps of foster carers to be circulated and exchanged.

Job descriptions – they have been collected and are available for reference.

We discussed if we would be interested in having an input on residential tenancy at our next meeting. Linda agreed to talk to Threshold about this they may be available for our next meeting.

We then looked at the hub model of provision from the ERHA Aftercare Policy With the new structures in the Health Services there may be some re-looking at the policy and changes before it is readapted.

comments

  • Very focused on accommodation
  • Should we be putting money in to buildings
  • Young people want a flat in the community
  • One Stop shop model – does not help them access mainstream community services.
  • Where is the cut off point for service to end.
  • First key have a model of continuum of care

Alan used an exit interview and gave the young people 20 euro for filling it out as one way of keeping track of what the young people were now doing. Alan does these exit interviews 3mths and 12 mths after. Alan will bring copy to next meeting.

We will be able to re- look at polices when we know how areas will be divided.

Brid showed a copy of a resource pack that the South Western Health Board had put together copies are available from the South Western Health Board.

Next Meeting May 10th 11.30 am

Aine Daly from Threshold will give a presentation at the next meeting about accessing accommodation in the private rental sector for young people in care.

Threshold have office throughout the country and are interested in networking with us and getting our advice on what is needed.

In advance of the next meeting people can look at the web site for access housing (Threshold) where information about the organisation is available.