Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 13 May 2020
1111. Deputy Róisín Shortall asked the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs further to Parliamentary Question No. 1088 of 5 March 2020, the factors which determine the allocation of educational welfare officers across the five regional areas; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [4829/20]
View answerThe aims and objectives of the statutory Educational Welfare Service (EWS) are to ensure that every child attends school regularly and vindicate every child’s entitlement to a certain minimum education. Educational Welfare Officers (EWOs) work with families and children to overcome barriers to their school attendance, participation and retention; and work closely with schools, educational support services and other agencies to support school attendance and resolve attendance problems for the benefit of children and families.
Where a school principal has a concern in relation to a pupil’s school attendance and where the school has made all local efforts to resolve the problem a referral can be made to EWS.
When referrals are received by the EWS team they are screened by a Senior Educational Welfare Officer. All completed referrals are placed in priority order and are assigned to the EWO team accordingly. At any stage a principal can follow up with the EWS to ascertain the status of a referral.
EWOs are allocated to the 5 TESS Regions based on evidence and having considered a range of factors which include: the geographical size of a region, the number of schools in a region, the number of DEIS schools in a region, the number of referrals in a region over the previous three years, the complexity of the cases arising in the region and a range of other factors that impact demand.
The table below illustrates the 5 EWS regions and the staffing complement per region:
|
Region 1 |
Region 2 |
Region 3 |
Region 4 |
Region 5 |
|
Southern Area: Cork, Kerry, Limerick, Clare, Tipperary, |
South County Dublin, Kildare, Wicklow, Waterford, Wexford, Carlow, Kilkenny. |
North Dublin City, South Dublin City, Clondalkin and Lucan |
West/North-West: Galway, Mayo, Sligo, Donegal, Leitrim, Roscommon, Longford, Offaly, Laois, Westmeath. |
Fingal, Louth, Meath, Cavan, Monaghan |
|
19 |
24 |
16 |
24 |
15 |
