Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 21 March 2023
936. Deputy Holly Cairns asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth how an individual can receive funding to cover the cost of training hours for creche/childcare staff to care for a young child who requires PEG feeding. [13054/23]
View answerA wide range of training programmes and Continuing Professional Development (CPD) resources are provided and made available free of charge to early years educators, school-age childcare practitioners and childminders by my Department and by the agencies and support organisations that it funds, including Better Start, the City / County Childcare Committees, and a number of National Voluntary Childcare Organisations. Training programmes include but are not limited to the National Síolta Aistear Initiative, training in child protection, the Healthy Ireland Smart Start programme, the Leadership for Inclusion Programme, and other training programmes that form part of the Access and Inclusion Model. Funding has also been provided in recent years for services to undertake the First Aid Responder training programme.
Various funding programmes run by my Department, including the ECCE programme, the National Childcare Scheme, and most recently the new Core Funding for early learning and care (ELC) and school-age childcare services, support staffing costs, which include staff 'non-contact time', e.g. time for participation in training programmes. Although Core Funding is calculated based on the hours that the service is open and available to children, non-contact time is factored into the base rate. An allowance for non-contact time is built into the contribution for staff costs and there is also a separate contribution for administrative staff/time. It is at the discretion of the service as to how Core Funding is utilised, provided the purpose conforms to the approved areas of expenditure as set out in the Core Funding Partner Service Funding Agreement.
One of the commitments in First 5, the Whole-of-Government Strategy for Babies, Young Children and their Families, 2019-2028, was to undertake an end-of-year-three evaluation of the Access and Inclusion Model (AIM). AIM is a suite of universal and targeted supports designed to ensure that children with disabilities can access the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) pre-school programme. That evaluation has now been completed, with the final report due to be published later this year. Subject to evaluation findings and other relevant developments, Department officials will be considering enhancements to, and/or expansion of, AIM.
