Sorca Clarke
Question:152. Deputy Sorca Clarke asked the Minister for Education to provide an update on the pilot counselling programmes in primary schools in terms of pupils directly engaged, per year, in tabular form. [45517/23]
View answerWednesday, 18 October 2023
Questions (152)
Written answers
The Department of Education is committed to supporting the emotional well-being of our children and I am very pleased to provide an update on the significant progress that has been made on Strands 1 and 2 of the pilot in almost 650 primary schools across the country. I am also delighted to announce that my Department has secured additional funding in Budget 2024 to continue the pilot for an additional year, until June 2025.
As this is a Pilot programme started in the 2023 school year, we do not have details on pupils who have engaged in previous years and we anticipate we will have further details of the number of children directly engaging in the pilot as the pilot continues to be rolled out throughout the school year.
The pilot includes two Strands. Strand 1 will see the provision of one-to-one counselling to support a small number of children in all primary schools in counties Cavan, Laois, Leitrim, Longford, Mayo, Monaghan and Tipperary.
Considerable work has been undertaken to identify suitably qualified, experienced and accredited counsellors. In the absence of a single recognised counselling qualification and a national regulatory body for counselling in Ireland, at this point in time, the Department initially liaised with the three largest accrediting bodies for counsellors in Ireland, including the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (IACP), the Psychological Society of Ireland (PSI) and the Irish Association of Humanistic and Integrative Psychotherapists in Ireland (IAHIP).
The Department has subsequently liaised with additional associations and is now also accepting applications from counsellors accredited with the Irish Association of Psychotherapy and Play Therapy (IAPTP) and the Association of Child Art Psychotherapists (ACAP), and those registered with the Irish Council for Psychotherapy (ICP).
Due to highly sensitive nature of providing counselling for children, the application and vetting process for these counsellors requires significant time and attention in order to ensure the highest quality in this landmark pilot project.
However, I am very pleased to advise that we will be in touch with schools in the coming weeks in relation to the initial allocation of counselling hours to schools. Schools, in consultation with a NEPS psychologist, and guided by the Department of Education’s Continuum of Support, will identify the children who may benefit most from this counselling service, which will be subject to parental or legal guardian informed consent.
Strand 2 will see the establishment of a new type of support to schools from Education Well-being Teams and the introduction of Well-being Practitioners to support clusters of schools in Cork, Carlow, Dublin 7 and Dublin 16. Candidates for the Well-being Practitioners for Strand 2 of the pilot have been interviewed and positions have been offered. We anticipate these practitioners will be employed in the four pilot areas in the coming weeks, and they will initially receive additional training by NEPS psychologists. NEPS psychologists will also provide on-going professional supervision to support and maintain the work undertaken by the practitioners. This will ensure safe practice and the use of evidence-informed programmes and supports in schools.
The focus of the support to be provided under Strand 2 is on strengthening whole school preventative approaches. This includes the provision of psycho-educational support for parents and teachers, and the provision of early intervention to children with mild/emerging need, using low-level therapeutically-informed approaches.
Through this existing pilot programme and subsequent evaluation we are confident that we will gather valuable learning that will inform future policy and provision in this area.