Sharon Keogan warns children could be 'missed' for 20 years

Gosh, it's horrifying to think that it could take 20 years and all the children that are going to be missed in that 20 years. It's actually quite horrifying to tell you the truth. You know, from my perspective, Tuislan is failing a lot of these children and only for the voluntary sector and I suppose the for-profit sector. I hate to think where we would be today and I do not like the for-profit sector at all. There's one particular house in my area where, not in my area, and where the children constantly go missing from. It's a residential area and children are constantly going missing from this particular area. So that is why I'm really curious in relation to, you know, having your staff, having the continuity of staff, having those services there, having those relationships with those children that come into those residential units with you and the importance of that and the importance of trying to get children into education because I would know that children that would come from house to house do not and sometimes they're not in education for up to two years and that is shocking and these children are 12, 13, 14 years of age and they've missed out on two years of education and then they're coming into, obviously they can't get placement so they have to go somewhere, they may be going into the for-profit sector or they're going into the voluntary sector and then you have to deal with that child that hasn't got the capacity that the other children of the same age and that child has to go back on their educational pathway. If I can just, I think that's a really good point and it's a really good example of why this is cross-departmental. There was a lady, Tara, and I'm blanking on her surname, apologies, who did a piece of research on that and the idea being that if a young person is being moved there should be a link from Department of Education that makes sure when they move they land and they have an education placement. What actually happens in reality is they move to us and then we start trying to find a local school or the local leaders and you're right, time builds up, but we don't have that. Someone's in care, when they move it's urgent, a placement has to be identified and established immediately. One of the biggest failings is the fact that you have a child that potentially is in a school, has got a wraparound service to make that school placement work in terms of support hours, S&A support, and they then come into us and basically all of that's gone. You have to reapply for everything and therefore sometimes local schools will be reluctant because again they're managing their own numbers and they have their own demands and therefore then you're trying to ask for a child to be admitted and unfortunately they won't have the support hours until it's reapplied for, which could be the next academic year. That's tough. That support and that wraparound is potentially just sustaining that placement for that child. So that is a fundamental flaw that should be addressed. Just maybe to pick up a couple of steps ago, I think, I don't think Retusa is failing, I think Retusa would be given an almost impossible task. And I agree with you there, I agree with you. They're under-resourced, they haven't got the staff, and that's not their fault. It's just the system that's in there at this moment in time does not work. Yeah, and you're right in what you say, that without the privates, where would we be? Because effectively, because the state didn't take account of capacity building the voluntary sector, without the privates we would have had children in homeless conditions potentially. So in some ways we have to say that it's really unfortunate that we're talking about a long-term plan, but we find ourselves in a situation where we might be talking about a long-term plan, we may not be here. And I suppose that's the critical, so when we talk about sustainability, long-term planning, and all the challenges that are faced with us now, if we don't get the first step right in sustaining the voluntary providers, the plan will be very difficult. For the English model, for the local authority model, I'm an advocate for that. I think bringing it back down to basics, bringing it back down to community is where really this child care should be. That is the model that I would like to see in this country. I think it's the only model that's going to work, where children are kept within their own county, within their own community. I think it's the only model that's going to work. I just don't know how else to go about it. Well maybe Deputy, just one thing, just based on what you were saying there, when we talk about the framework, the alternative care framework in the Department for Government, the first part of that, actions, short-term actions to address the current crisis, part of those short-term actions is sustainability of the voluntary sector. It's very short-term for us. As they say, we may not be around too much longer unless the government step in to provide a proper source of funding, both capital funding and full cost of our service, full cost recovery, because that is a short-term action for us. We, as David said, we would love to say that we will work with all the stakeholders over the next 20 years. We will if we're still in existence, but some of us may not be. I think the state should take a leap of fate, talking about capacity, take a leap of fate and let the voluntary organisations grow, whatever it be, whether it be capital funding, whether it be properties, whether it be resources, whether it be staffing, and then let it grow. I agree. The 1980s, the 1800s, we've been around for 50 years. We would love to be around for another 50. The difficulty is, in terms of at the minute, the biggest demand on us as a service is trying to recruit staff. The negative impact from being removed from the Department of Health, Social Care, the salary scales, has made it quite challenging for us to recruit staff the way that we used to. The uncertainty that's been added to the fact that potentially our pensions are being reviewed at the minute and our eligibility to the pension scheme, again, is making it challenging for us to recruit, because the fundamental question that anybody would ask as a new candidate interested in employment would be, what's your salary scale and what's your pension scheme? At the minute, we're having to give, well, we were part of the Department of Health, we're now in an adopted WRC salary scale situation, and we hope to be able to offer you a pension, but again, that's not certain. That doesn't help. Sorry, just to clarify that, because I think when people look at it generally and say, the state are having difficulties in recruiting staff, and we are, it's not the same. Our challenges are based around predominantly paying pensions. The state and other organisations are not.