Kiri

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Liana Petrova

Saatja: Info NRP <[email protected]> Saatmisaeg: neljapäev, 11. detsember 2025 11:59 Adressaat: Liana Petrova Teema: RE: Additional question from Estonian Social Insurance Board

Dear Liana Thanks for your email. When we had an online meeting with the predecessor of yourself, we explained that there is no point in visiting Ireland to have an 'on-site' visit, as there is no site or physical NRP office, all our meetings are conducted online as panel members work from home in different parts of the country, all our material is confidential. As an alternative, we would be happy to offer a further online meeting with you to answer any of their questions. Kind Regards Conor Dourneen Business Support Officer, National Review Panel Email: [email protected] Please note that there is no postal address for the NRP

From: Liana Petrova <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday 10 December 2025 10:05 To: Conor Dourneen <[email protected]> Cc: Info NRP <[email protected]> Subject: Vs: Additional question from Estonian Social Insurance Board

CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organisation. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognise the sender and know the content is safe- Tusla ICT.

Dear Conor Dourneen

Tähelepanu! Tegemist on väljastpoolt asutust saabunud kirjaga. Tundmatu saatja korral palume linke ja faile mitte avada.

[email protected] saada teile sageli meilisõnumeid. Lugege täpsemat teavet selle kohta, miks see on oluline

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Thank you very much for your prompt response. It will certainly help our working group further develop a cross- sectoral analysis model and methodology for child protection cases with serious outcomes in Estonia. I sincerely hope that you won't mind if I reach out to you again should any additional questions arise from the members of our working group regarding the work of the NRP. Since our working group greatly appreciated your NRP model and methodology, we would likely want to visit you in 2026 if that suits you. We are very interested and would be delighted to meet with the panel members, one or two experts and the chair or deputy chair to gain a more comprehensive understanding on-site in Ireland. I will contact you again next year to discuss the details of our visit. Thank you once again for your help. Kind Regards Liana Petrova Lead specialist Supervision Unit Social Insurance Board ___________________________ 53028997 www.sotsiaalkindlustusamet.ee This email and attachments may be confidential. If you have received this email in error, you must not take any action based on it, nor should you disseminate it. Please notify the sender about the mistake and delete the email.

Saatja: Info NRP <[email protected]> Saatmisaeg: kolmapäev, 10. detsember 2025 11:28 Adressaat: Liana Petrova <[email protected]> Teema: RE: Additional question from Estonian Social Insurance Board

Dear Liana Please see response to your questions outlined below.

1. The NRP does not review all cases notified to them. Where there has been limited engagement by Tusla social work services or where Tusla’s own rapid review process is deemed sufficient in identifying practice deficits and learning points, a review may not be conducted.

2. The panel is made up of 12 members, including the chair and a deputy chairperson. It is the chair and deputy chair that meet monthly to review notifications

and rapid reviews received. At this meeting they also discuss progress of ongoing reviews. Generally, 1-2 panel members will be assigned to review a case, depending on availability and skills required. Each review is overseen by either the chair or deputy chair. They will review records from Tusla and possibly other external agencies, draft a chronology and make a determination as to whether a meeting with family members or staff Tusla/external agencies is required. Following reviews, participants are given the opportunity to review an extract of the report, relating to their meeting and provide a response. The report is reviewed by the NRP’s legal representative and quality assured by the chair before being submitted to Tusla. The panel have a data protection officer who ensures compliance with GDPR. The panel have a service manager and an administrative support. The service manager is responsible for the governance of the panel, including management of the budget, contract oversight, gdpr responsibilities, providing stats and reports for NRP (including for the annual report) and other stakeholders, and along with the admin support, provides general support to the review team members.

3. Depending on the level of engagement a family has had with Tusla, a review can take anything from 12months to 3 years to complete. Panel members are

contracted to work on average 2.5 days per week and their work is solely in relation to case reviews, except for the chair and deputy chair. The annual report takes approximately 2 weeks to complete.

4. The NRP completes on average 12 reports per year. As per the interim guidance we operate under, Tusla makes the decision to publish and 4 were published

in 2024 and none in 2025. Kind Regards Conor Dourneen On Behalf of the Chairperson of the National Review Panel Business Support Officer, National Review Panel Email: [email protected] Please note that there is no postal address for the NRP

Tähelepanu! Tegemist on väljastpoolt asutust saabunud kirjaga. Tundmatu saatja korral palume linke ja faile mitte avada.

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From: Liana Petrova <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday 7 December 2025 13:56 To: Helen Buckley <[email protected]>; [email protected] Cc: Info NRP <[email protected]> Subject: Additional question from Estonian Social Insurance Board Importance: High

CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organisation. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognise the sender and know the content is safe- Tusla ICT.

Dear Dr Helen Buckley I am writing to you from the Estonian Social Insurance Board and I work in the supervision unit. Last year, you had (see below) a Zoom meeting with my colleague Kristel Vallsalu, who has since left her position. I am now continuing her work and the Estonian project. In 2025, we formed a working group with the goal of developing a cross-sectoral analysis model and methodology for child protection cases with serious outcomes. Our working group meets once a month, and at our last meeting, we became acquainted with the work of Ireland’s National Review Panel (NRP), particularly with the information from an interview with you and what I found on the NRP website. Since the methodology of Ireland's NRP greatly appealed to our working group members, some additional questions arose. Unfortunately, I was unable to find the answers in the existing materials, so I decided to write to you directly to get answers. Could you please, if possible, answer the following questions: 1. Does the NRP analyze all cases that meet the criteria (for example, the case meets the first criterion: it involves a

serious incident where the child is aged 0-21 and known to Tusla and receiving Tusla services)? Is it sufficient for a case to meet the criteria, or does the NRP make a further selection from there (based on what criteria)?

2. What is the internal organization of the NRP? Are the cases divided among all members, with each member responsible for a part of the work, or do all members review all the materials of each case? Could you please explain in more detail the internal organization of the NRP and the roles of all members? I found in the interview notes that the NRP has 12 members, they meet once a month to review all submitted cases (each child protection area conducts a rapid-review beforehand). Based on these brief summaries, it is decided whether a deeper analysis is conducted. Two to three committee members review the files, request new data from other related agencies, and all the information is reviewed. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find information regarding what the other members do and what the exact work organization of the NRP is. Also I found information that the work of the NRP is supported by a Tusla administrative manager, but what is his/her specific responsibilities?

3. What is the average number of working hours required to analyze an individual case? How much time on average is needed to compile an individual report and an annual report? Here is the approximate information that interests me, of course if you know it. We are currently considering whether the members of our proposed commission can do this alongside their main work or if our future commission member will be dedicated solely to the commission's work. Therefore, we are interested in understanding the workload of NRP members.

4. How many cases does the NRP analyze and summarize annually? Did I understand correctly that in 2024, the NRP conducted a total of 48 case analyses, of which 4 individual reports were published in 2024, and an

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additional 12 reports will be published in 2025? Were the remaining 32 individual reports decided to be left unpublished? On the NRP website, I found that in 2021, 2023, and 2024, 4 individual reports were published, while notes from the interview suggest that not all reports are disclosed, and Tusla decides which ones to publish. The latest annual report mentions that during the year, panel members submitted reports on 4 children, consisting of 3 desktop reviews and 1 comprehensive review. Additionally, 12 reports were brought to the final stage but were put on hold to be submitted in 2025. By the end of the year, a total of 48 reviews were in progress.

Could you please respond at your earliest convenience, or by December 12th at the latest, as our next working group meeting is scheduled for December 12, 2025, at 10:00 AM. I would be very grateful if you could respond before our meeting, as your answers are very important for us. Yours Sincerely Liana Petrova Lead specialist Supervision Unit Social Insurance Board ___________________________ 53028997 www.sotsiaalkindlustusamet.ee This email and attachments may be confidential. If you have received this email in error, you must not take any action based on it, nor should you disseminate it. Please notify the sender about the mistake and delete the email.

Saatja: Kristel Vallsalu Saatmisaeg: teisipäev, 27. august 2024 12:40 Adressaat: Helen Buckley <[email protected]> Teema: Vs: zoom invite Thank you for the link. Looking forward to meet you tomorrow. Kristel

Saatja: Helen Buckley <[email protected]> Saatmisaeg: esmaspäev, 26. august 2024 18:05 Adressaat: Kristel Vallsalu <[email protected]> Koopia: Helen Buckley <[email protected]> Teema: zoom invite Helen Buckley is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting. Topic: Helen Buckley's Zoom Meeting Time: Aug 28, 2024 09:30 AM London Join Zoom Meeting https://us05web.zoom.us/j/81919877816?pwd=UoLbJZS6bxcTfza9DbxENN9Mh0Tbw2.1 Meeting ID: 819 1987 7816 Passcode: 9JJmG2 Here's the invite Kristel, I'm not too great with setting up Zooms so hopefully it will work! Helen

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From: Kristel Vallsalu <[email protected]> Sent: Monday 26 August 2024 15:32 To: Helen Buckley <[email protected]> Subject: Vs: Request to learn from National Review Panel Hello Helen, Ireland is two hours behind, but it is not a problem and i am free to meet you in zoom. Thank you! Best wishes Kristel

Saatja: Helen Buckley <[email protected]> Saatmisaeg: esmaspäev, 26. august 2024 16:40 Adressaat: Kristel Vallsalu <[email protected]> Teema: Re: Request to learn from National Review Panel Hi Kristel, further to my last email to you on 15th August, would you be free to speak to us at 9.30 (our time, I'm not sure of the time difference in Estonia) on Wednesday 28th August? If you are, I will set up a zoom and send you an invite, Best wishes Helen

From: Kristel Vallsalu <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday 13 August 2024 09:56 To: Helen Buckley <[email protected]> Subject: Ed: Request to learn from National Review Panel Dear Dr Helen Buckley I wrote to you about a month ago from Estonian Social Insurance Board. Sadly i have not recieved an answer. I hope you have had time to read my previous email and think about my request. I called to National Review Panels phone number and they said you have been busy with other things. If you are interested in meeting with me (we can do initial meeting via Zoom or some other tool like that) but it is not possible in the near future, maybe you could forward my contacts to your collegues so that i can talk in details of our project and its goals. Looking forward to your answer, Kristel Vallsalu Lead specialist Supervision Unit Social Insurance Board ___________________________ +372 53321492 www.sotsiaalkindlustusamet.ee

Saatja: Kristel Vallsalu Saatmisaeg: kolmapäev, 12. juuni 2024 13:06 Adressaat: '[email protected]' <[email protected]> Teema: Request to learn from National Review Panel Dear Dr Helen Buckley

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Firstly I want to apologize to have contacted you through this email, but there is no email contact listed in National Review Panels website. As you are named on the website as Chair of the Panel I thought it was best to contact you directly. If my email is wrongly adressed, please let me know and I will try to find correct person to contact. Reason for me to contact you is to learn more about work of National Review Panel. I am writing to you from Estonian Social Insurance Board. I am working in the Supervision Unit of Legal and Supervision Department and have the leading role in a new project aiming to improve state supervision over child protection work. One of the main objectives of this project is to determine the best way to supervise serious child welfare cases where a child has been seriously harmed by abuse or neglect or serious self-harm has occurred. Right now there are 79 local governments in Estonia who all have their own child welfare/protection workers. Quality of this work varies from one local government to another. All local governments have slightly different ways and capacities to organise this work and provide different services for families in need. In Social Insurance Board there is Child Welfare Department with Advisory Services Unit where local goverments’ child welfare/protection workers can turn for advice when working on difficult cases. They also provide mentoring service for starting child welfare/protection workers. The abovementioned governmental services have been set up specifically to level the differences in all local goverments’ practices. In 2016 the new Child Protection Act was implemented in Estonia and since then Social Insurance Board has been supervising and offering advice (as previously described) to local goverments. Over the years we have seen growing need for more specific supervision. We are a small country and the number of serious cases is low, but we have seen problems with cross-disciplinary cooperation. Sometimes children with mental health problems slip through the cracks between social and medical systems and consequences can be severe. With all that in mind we recieved funding for the next few years to improve our state supervision over child protection services. For the last few months I have been looking for different methods used by other countries and National Review Panel seems to be something that we could learn much from and probably implement something from your experience to improve our system. I have been looking at different documents and publications at your website, but I would like to learn more in detail about Irish child welfare system, the work of the Panel and how you analyse serious cases. Would you be available to schedule a meeting in order to provide me with in-depth understanding of how your system works and how the serious cases are being reviewed? Provided it suits you I would propose a visit at the end of this summer or early autumn. I would be glad to meet the Panel members and one or two experts who review serious cases. We are deeply interested in how your review system has been built up and different methodologies of how to review serious cases and which ones we can implement in our system. I would come to Dublin whenever it suits you and have one or two days to meet with the people you think are the best to give me some insight. In return I can talk about how child welfare system works in Estonia, if you are interested. I would appreciate the opportunity to get acquainted to the work of the Panel in person so if you are ready to meet me and discuss the topics mentioned above, please let me know via e-mail address [email protected]. Yours Sincerely Kristel Vallsalu Lead specialist Supervision Unit Social Insurance Board ___________________________ +372 53321492 www.sotsiaalkindlustusamet.ee

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Meilisõnum ja selle manused on mõeldud ainult aadressireal nimetatud isikutele ja võib olla konfidentsiaalne. Juhul, kui see on eksikombel Teie aadressile sattunud, on Teil keelatud sõnumi alusel mingeid toiminguid teostada, seda kopeerida või kõrvalistele isikutele näidata; palume saata vastus saatja aadressile ja eksitusest teatada ning meilisõnum oma postkastist kustutada.

"Tá an fhaisnéis sa ríomhphost seo (ceangaltáin san áireamh) faoi rún. Baineann sé leis an té ar seoladh chuige amháin agus tá sé ar intinn go bhfaighfidh siadsan amháin é agus gurb iadsan amháin a dhéanfaidh breithniú air. Más rud é nach tusa an duine ar leis é, tá cosc iomlán ar aon fhaisnéis atá ann, a úsáid, a chraobhscaoileadh, a scaipeadh, a nochtadh, a fhoilsiú, ná a chóipeáil . Seains gurb iad tuairimí pearsanta an údar atá san ríomhphost agus nach tuairimí Tusla iad.

Má fuair tú an ríomhphost seo trí dhearmad, bheadh muid buíoch dá gcuirfeá in iúil don Deasc Seirbhísí ECT ar an nguthán ag +353 1 7718870 nó ar an ríomhphost chuig [email protected] agus ansin glan an ríomhphost seo ded' chóras."

"Information in this email (including attachments) is confidential. It is intended for receipt and consideration only by the intended recipient. If you are not an addressee or intended recipient, any use, dissemination, distribution, disclosure, publication or copying of information contained in this email is strictly prohibited. Opinions expressed in this email may be personal to the author and are not necessarily the opinions of Tusla.

If this email has been received by you in error we would be grateful if you could immediately notify the ICT Service Desk by telephone at+353 1 771 8570 or by email to [email protected] and thereafter delete this e-mail from your system"

"Tá an fhaisnéis sa ríomhphost seo (ceangaltáin san áireamh) faoi rún. Baineann sé leis an té ar seoladh chuige amháin agus tá sé ar intinn go bhfaighfidh siadsan amháin é agus gurb iadsan amháin a dhéanfaidh breithniú air. Más rud é nach tusa an duine ar leis é, tá cosc iomlán ar aon fhaisnéis atá ann, a úsáid, a chraobhscaoileadh, a scaipeadh, a nochtadh, a fhoilsiú, ná a chóipeáil . Seains gurb iad tuairimí pearsanta an údar atá san ríomhphost agus nach tuairimí Tusla iad.

Má fuair tú an ríomhphost seo trí dhearmad, bheadh muid buíoch dá gcuirfeá in iúil don Deasc Seirbhísí ECT ar an nguthán ag +353 1 7718870 nó ar an ríomhphost chuig [email protected] agus ansin glan an ríomhphost seo ded' chóras."

"Information in this email (including attachments) is confidential. It is intended for receipt and consideration only by the intended recipient. If you are not an addressee or intended recipient, any use, dissemination, distribution, disclosure, publication or copying of information contained in this email is strictly prohibited. Opinions expressed in this email may be personal to the author and are not necessarily the opinions of Tusla.

If this email has been received by you in error we would be grateful if you could immediately notify the ICT Service Desk by telephone at+353 1 771 8570 or by email to [email protected] and thereafter delete this e-mail from your system"