Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 30 January 2024
285. Deputy Mick Barry asked the Minister for Education if his Department will extend the in-school counselling pilot programme to all schools, in light of the increasing need for counselling for young people. [4159/24]
View answerThe Department of Education is committed to supporting the emotional wellbeing 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 Counselling in Primary Schools Pilot in almost 650 primary schools across the country. I am also delighted to advise that my Department has secured additional funding in Budget 2024 to continue the pilot for an additional year, until June 2025.The pilot includes two Strands. Strand 1 is 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 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).
The counsellors on the panel are currently providing counselling sessions to a small number of children in primary schools in the pilot counties. A letter was sent to schools in November advising them of their allocation of blocks of counselling sessions for children, and a further allocation will be given to schools for the remainder of the school year. NEPS psychologists are supporting schools to identify and prioritise children to access the counselling support, guided by the Continuum of Support, and subject to parental or legal guardian informed consent. Guidelines for Schools have been provided to support schools in the implementation of Strand 1 of the pilot. A dedicated webpage with information for parents, information for counsellors and information for schools is also available on gov.ie.
Strand 2 of the pilot is the establishment of a new type of support to schools from Education Wellbeing Teams and the introduction of Education Wellbeing Practitioners to support clusters of schools in Cork, Carlow, Dublin 7 and Dublin 16. The Education Wellbeing Practitioner is a new type of practitioner being introduced as part of this pilot to provide enhanced in-school support. The practitioners are graduates from psychology, education and social science. The recruitment process for the Education Wellbeing Practitioners is complete, and an ongoing training programme for the Practitioners is being provided by NEPS. NEPS psychologists are also providing oversight and 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 approaches to promoting wellbeing, in line with the Department of Education’s Wellbeing Policy and Framework for Practice. This includes offering psycho-educational support for parents and teachers, and the delivery of evidence-based interventions to promote resilience and coping strategies and to maintain and develop wellbeing.
NEPS has met with officials from the Department of Education in Northern Ireland in relation to the Healthy Happy Minds Pilot, which was the provision of counselling in schools. NEPS have also met with the Education Authority in Dorset in the UK and with a Mental Health Support Team in West Sussex in relation to the Mental Health Support Teams model. A team from NEPS visited Dorset and West Sussex last December to meet with Mental Health leads, Education Mental Health Practitioners, and counsellors involved in the project. The NEPS team also visited schools in the project to learn from how the project was implemented.It is not possible to include all primary schools in the pilot. 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.
