Less than half of Jersey’s children in long-term care have lived in the same home for more than two years, it has emerged.
The States of Jersey Annual Report and Accounts revealed that just 42.9% of children who have been in care for two-and-a-half years or more have been in the same placement for two years.
This falls significantly short of the Government’s target of 74.8% of children.
There were 60 looked-after children in Jersey last year, according to the report – with a “very small cohort” having been in care for two-and-a-half years or more.
The report’s annex explained: “There have been significant challenges in respect of the availability of homes for children in this cohort which resulted in the decline in performance which has fallen below statistical neighbours.
“Practice is being strengthened with regular permanency planning meetings taking place.
“A key priority is the recruitment of foster carers to enable better matching for children and their carers to support placement stability from the outset.”
Efforts to increase the number of local foster carers stretch as far back as 2018, when an Ofsted inspection of Children’s Services found that as many as a quarter of children in care had to be sent away from the island because there weren’t enough appropriate placements in Jersey.
In 2022, more than £3.5m was spent on placing local children into homes off-island – despite it being branded a “last resort” option.
Specialist care providers putting up their prices and a need for more intensive support contributed to an extra £1m being spent on funding these homes outside the island – even though there was little increase in the actual number of children being sent away in 2022 compared to the previous year.
And earlier this year, it emerged that almost half of the social workers currently employed in children’s services are temporary agency workers.
Out of the 86 social workers currently employed in children’s services, 35 are locum workers.
These agency staff are covering 44 vacancies within the department – nine of which remain unfilled.
That figure was published just six month after a watchdog report found that frequent changes in social workers and managers were “negatively impacting” children in care.
The Jersey Care Commission outlined recruitment and retention issues in the Children’s Social Care Service and Fostering Services its inspection report.
The inspection revealed that, while the service has made progress since previous assessments and is generally well-managed, “too many changes of workers and managers” is creating instability in the workforce and affecting the quality of support provided to children and foster families.
Children’s Minister Richard Vibert previously explained that the “nature of the work” makes it difficult to recruit social workers in Jersey.
Data from December 2023 revealed that children in care for two years or more had an average of 1.8 social workers in the previous 12 months, and 2.5 social workers in the previous 24 months.
However, the Minister clarified that changes in social workers are not solely due to staff turnover but can also result from responding to a child’s needs or transfers between services.
As of December 2023, 477 children were being supported by a social worker in Jersey.
