Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 17 January 2024
501. Deputy Colm Burke asked the Minister for Education if she will set aside funding for the purposes of expanding mental health and wellbeing supports for secondary school students; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [56650/23]
View answerThe area of wellbeing and the promotion of positive mental health is a priority for the Department of Education. The Department of Education’s approach to supporting wellbeing and mental health is set out in its Wellbeing Policy Statement and Framework for Practice.
The approach in the Wellbeing Policy is founded on research and best international practice in relation to how schools can best support the wellbeing and mental health of children and young people. The approach proposed is a whole school and preventative approach which has multiple components that include:
Providing children and young people with opportunities to build core social and emotional skills and competencies
• Providing children and young people with opportunities to experience supportive relationships within the school setting and to learn through those relationships
• Providing children and young people with opportunities to be part of a school environment and culture that feels both physically and psychologically safe, an environment in which children and young people feel a sense of belonging and connectedness, in which they feel their voice is heard, and they feel supported.
• Schools are encouraged to use a reflective, school self-evaluation approach to identify and prioritise the needs of its own school community in relation to the promotion of wellbeing and mental health, and to respond to meeting those needs.
A dedicated wellbeing portal can be accessed via ‘Wellbeing in Education’ on Gov.ie, bringing together all the wellbeing supports and resources that have been developed by the Department and the Department’s support services.
NEPS provides a comprehensive, school-based psychological service to all primary and post primary schools through the application of psychological theory and practice to support the wellbeing, academic, social and emotional development of all learners.
NEPS provides a casework service to schools through the assigned NEPS psychologist, Individual casework service involves a high level of psychologist collaboration with teachers and parents, often also working directly with the child/young person. NEPS may become involved with supporting individual students where the school’s SET team or Student Support Team (in post-primary) feels that the involvement of the psychologist is needed. Psychologists may provide consultation in relation to therapeutic informed approaches to be delivered in the school setting and engage in direct work with an individual student as appropriate. In the event that the need for a more targeted counselling or a specialised intervention is identified by the NEPS psychologist, a referral is made to an outside agency for evaluation and ongoing support. The NEPS psychologist can identify the most appropriate referral pathway and supports school with the onward referral to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Team (CAMHS), HSE Primary Care/Community Psychology teams, or an identified local community based specialist mental health service.
NEPS’ Support and Development work involves the provision of applied psychology services for teachers and school communities to build and maximise their capacity to respond to the needs of all students and those with particular needs.
The Department has been examining the matter of how NEPS can continue to recruit adequate numbers of suitably qualified psychologists and continue to respond to the educational psychological needs of children in recognised schools across the country in both primary and post-primary settings.
Since January of 2023, NEPS is supporting bursaries for students who are enrolled in the University College Dublin (UCD) Professional Doctorate in Educational Psychology and the Mary Immaculate College (MIC), Professional Doctorate in Educational and Child Psychology for Trainee Educational Psychologists. Those in receipt of a bursary commit to joining NEPS upon graduation. The Public Appointments Service (PAS) undertook a recruitment campaign for Educational Psychologists for NEPS in 2023 and a second recruitment campaign is currently open for 2024. Panels of psychologists have been created. There are currently 235 whole-time equivalent NEPS educational psychologists employed across the 8 NEPS regions, delivering a psychological service to our schools which will increase with the intake from the 2024 recruitment and bursary graduates joining the service in the years to come. The budget for the operation of NEPS is €31.7m.
As Minister for Education in June 2023, I announced the establishment of a programme of counselling and wellbeing/mental health supports to be piloted in over 650 primary schools across 10 counties and secured a commitment of €5million in Budget 2023. I was also pleased to announce funding in Budget 2024 to continue the counselling in primary school pilot, until June 2025.
The pilot project has two strands. Strand 1 comprises the provision of one-to-one counselling to support small numbers of children experiencing mild to moderate levels of emotional distress. All primary schools in counties Cavan, Laois, Leitrim, Longford, Mayo, Monaghan and Tipperary are included in the first strand of the pilot.
Strand 2 of the pilot comprises of 72 schools in Cork, Dublin 7, Dublin 16 and Carlow and will see the establishment of a new type of support from Education Wellbeing/Mental Health Teams for clusters of primary schools. This Strand will also see the introduction of Wellbeing Practitioners, who will work under the direction and supervision of NEPS.
The focus of the support to be provided under Strand 2 is on strengthening whole school preventative approaches. This includes the provision of psycho-education support for parents and teachers, and the provision of early intervention to groups of children or individual children with mild/emerging need, using low-level therapeutically-informed approaches.
