Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 26 July 2022
1385. Deputy Richard Bruton asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the number of children who are supported through the various streams of AIM support; and if he has plans to extend these services. [40989/22]
View answerThe Access and Inclusion Model (AIM) is a model of supports designed to ensure that children with disabilities can access the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) Programme. Its goal is to empower pre-school providers to deliver an inclusive pre-school experience, ensuring that every eligible child can meaningfully participate in the ECCE Programme and reap the benefits of high quality early learning and care.
Since AIM was launched in 2016 over 19,000 children have received over 43,000 targeted supports in almost 4,000 settings nationally. These figures do not include the many more children and services that have benefited from the universal supports funded through AIM.
For the current programme year of 2021/22, 9,468 AIM supports have been provided benefiting 5,757 children.
One of the commitments in First 5 strategy was to undertake an end-of-year-three evaluation of AIM Subject to evaluation findings and other relevant developments, we will be considering enhancements to AIM and potential extensions beyond ECCE provision. The review is currently in advanced draft and expected to be finalised in Q.3 2022.
