Evaluating and Measuring Outcomes for Separated Children

Abstract

The Ryan Implementation Plan (2009) recommended that the Health Service Executive end the use of separately run hostels for separated children seeking asylum and instead implement equity of care policy accommodating them in mainstream care, on a par with other children in the care system. This meant that the majority of separated children – children under 18 years of age who are outside their country of origin and separated from either parents or their previous legal / customary primary caregiver – coming into the care of the HSE would now be placed in foster care after an initial assessment.