Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 11 October 2016
113. Deputy Thomas Byrne asked the Minister for Education and Skills the cost estimates for the expansion of the incredible years programme to 646 schools; the nature of the expansion; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29285/16]
View answerBy way of background I would inform the Deputy that the Incredible Years Teacher Classroom Management Programme (IY TCM) focuses on strengthening those teacher classroom management strategies which have been shown to promote children’s social, emotional and academic competence and foster positive teacher-parent relationships. The IY TCM programme addresses multiple school risk factors associated with later anti-social and conduct problems. As well as developing teachers’ classroom management skills the programme also equips teachers to develop tailored responses to the needs of specific groups or individual children in their classrooms.
The programme is delivered by the National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS) psychologists to teachers over 6 workshops, delivered one month apart. Teachers are supported between workshops in implementing new strategies and in this way the programme supports real and lasting change in teacher practice and school climate. Randomised controlled studies carried out in the US, UK and in Ireland all support the effectiveness of the programme in significantly improving child behaviour, classroom environment and teacher skills and confidence.
The proposal to expand the provision of training to teachers in the use of Incredible Years TCM takes place in the context of my Department’s recently published strategy statement “An Action Plan for Education 2016-19”. It is envisaged, subject to the provisions of the forthcoming Budget process, that an expanded NEPS service would provide a number of supports to schools in the implementation of the Wellbeing in Post-Primary school Guidelines for Mental Health Promotion and Suicide Prevention (2013) and the Wellbeing in Primary School Guidelines for Mental Health Promotion (2015).
As part of this expansion it is planned to prioritise the delivery of the Incredible Years TCM programme to teachers in all primary DEIS schools in the period in the period from early 2017 to the end of 2019 offering the programme to a potential estimated 4,800 teachers in these school who have not heretofore undertaken such training. As stated previously the programme involves 6 days input by participants and is delivered by trained NEPS psychologists to groups of 20. The programme is delivered in the network of Education Centres nationally and it is estimated that the direct costs of staging the training is in the region of €3,000 per course covering venue and course materials outlay.
