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Schools Mental Health Strategies

Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 18 December 2018

Tuesday, 18 December 2018

Questions (211)

John Curran

Question:

211. Deputy John Curran asked the Minister for Education and Skills if he will report on the development of well-being guidelines for centres of education and training. [52962/18]

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Written answers

Within my Department’s Action Plan for Education in 2016/19 well-being promotion including mental health is afforded a high priority and is one of the key goals. My Department is strongly supportive of the promotion of positive mental health awareness in post-primary schools and centres for education. The Department adopts a holistic and integrated approach to supporting schools and centres for education and training in promoting positive mental health.

The Well-being Policy Statement and Framework for Practice 2018-2023 launched by my Department in July 2018 provides an overarching structure encompassing existing, ongoing and developing work in the area of well-being including mental health promotion. It builds on the good work already happening in schools and centres for Education to ensure that best practice in whole-school/centre well-being promotion is embedded across the system. It includes a Well-being Implementation Plan which identifies seven high level actions to guide the work of implementation as follows:

- Strengthen and align current structures within the Department and between the Department and other relevant Departments to ensure the coordinated implementation of this Well-being Policy Statement and Framework for Practice.

- Plan and provide for the national roll-out of a professional development process to facilitate all schools and centres for education to engage with and embed a Self-Evaluation Well-being Promotion Process which builds professional capacity and collaborative cultures, from 2018-2023.

- Provide for an aligned, comprehensive and easily-accessible programme of support for all schools and centres for education to address school-identification well-being promotion needs.

- Consider how the system is meeting current and future teachers’ learning needs relation to well-being promotion.

- Develop a research based framework for the evaluation of well-being promotion in schools.

- Improve use of supports for children and young people at key points of transition within and between education settings.

- Promote the well-being of school and centre for education personnel.

These high level actions are in turn each supported underpinned by a range of specific sub-actions for roll-out to schools and centres for education for roll-out during the course in 2019.

The promotion of well-being for all is central to my Department’s mission to enable individuals to achieve their full potential. The Department’s ambition is that the promotion of well-being will be at the core of the ethos of every school and centre for education. This policy requires that a Well-being Promotion Process is developed and implemented, through the use of the School Self-Evaluation (SSE) process, in all schools and centres for education by 2023. This Well-being Policy Statement and Framework for Practice provides advice and direction for doing this. This national focus on well-being in education seeks to ensure that our children and young people realise their potential now and in the future, and are able build resilience and deal with the challenges they face in life. The Well-being Policy Statement sets out the evidence base for best practice in relation to well-being promotion. Schools and centres for education are asked to adopt a whole-school, multi-component, preventative approach to well-being promotion that includes both universal and targeted interventions. A whole-school /centre for education approach involves all in the community engaging in a collaborative process to improve areas of the institution’s life that impact on well-being. This will be achieved through the use of a self-evaluation process taking well-being promotion as its focus. It will allow benchmarking practice against Indicators of Success and Statements of Effective Practice, and identify areas for development, implementation and review. It is envisaged that schools and centres for education will engage with the statements and adapt and develop the best practice items as they meet the needs in their own school/centre community.

A multi-component approach encourages schools to address areas, not only relating to teaching and learning, but also relating to other essential elements of well-being promotion including school/centre culture and environment, policy and planning and relationships and partnerships. Working preventively and providing for both universal and targeted approaches is described as providing a ‘Continuum of Support’. Schools/Centres are encouraged to provide supports to promote the well-being of all within that community as well as providing some targeted interventions for children and young people presenting with vulnerabilities in the area of well-being. These areas are embedded in the Well-being Framework for Practice.

Schools/Centres for education will be supported in this work by a comprehensive national professional development programme currently being developed and a full national roll-out will commence in 2019 and run to 2023. This will include facilitating the engagement of schools/centres in the self-evaluation for well-being promotion process which will build professional capacity.

Work is underway to map the range of existing supports that schools and centres for education can already access with a view to ensuring that there is a comprehensive and easily-accessible set of resources available to support identified well-being promotion needs. Existing close collaboration with the HSE, Health Promotion Service will continue. A Well-being Steering Committee is in place which will oversee coordination of activity with other Departments. This group will link with the Youth Mental Health Pathfinder Project structures when progressed. The Department engages in cross departmental collaboration in supporting the implementation of Healthy Ireland 2013-2025, Connecting for Life (2015-2020), Better Outcomes Brighter Futures 2014-2020 strategies.

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