Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 16 April 2024
124. Deputy Gary Gannon asked the Minister for Education the actions her Department is taking to provide supports for primary school students experiencing homelessness in Dublin's north inner city, where a large percentage of pupils are homeless. [16493/24]
View answerDuring my time as Minister for Education I have shown a strong commitment to addressing educational disadvantage. My Department’s Statement of Strategy, sets out the vision of my Department for an educational system where every child and young person feels valued and is actively supported and nurtured to reach their full potential. It sets as a goal to ensure equity of opportunity in education and that all children and young people are supported to fulfil their potential. Developing an education system that welcomes every child and young person and meets their educational needs irrespective of background or ability. The successful delivery of this goal means that our school system is open and welcoming for all students, regardless of background, and that in particular learners at risk of educational disadvantage will be supported to achieve their full potential.
There are considerable supports available for children who are experiencing homelessness, both within schools and within the wider system, to ensure that their circumstances do not impact on school attendance, participation and retention. Schools are best placed to identify children and young people presenting with behavioural, emotional and social difficulties, and to deploy appropriate resources and interventions to respond to their needs. The student support file should be used to track and document the support process for children and young people with emerging or ongoing needs.
In the post-primary setting, the Student Support Team (SST) is the overarching structure through which schools identify and provide for the welfare and well-being of all students. A Student Support Team acts as a school hub, bringing coherence to the support system by coordinating the valuable work of departments, teams and/or groups such as the Junior Cycle Well-being Curricular Planning team, the Special Education Needs (SEN) department, the Critical Incident Management Team (CIMT) along with guidance and pastoral staff. School Leadership also has a significant role guiding and supporting the school’s Student Support Team. Focussing on the provision of a whole school approach Student Support Teams promote the well-being of the whole school community. The Cineáltas action plan on bullying includes an action on developing guidance for the establishment of a Student Support Team model in larger primary schools. This work has commenced and the pilot project is underway with 5 schools.
The Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools (DEIS) Programme is a key policy initiative of my Department to address concentrated educational disadvantage at school level in a targeted and equitable way. In March 2022 I announced the single largest expansion of the DEIS programme. This benefited 361 schools. The programme now includes in the region of 1,200 schools and supports approximately 240,000 students. 1 in 4 students and 30% of schools are now supported in the programme.This expansion added an additional €32 million to my Department’s expenditure on the DEIS programme from 2023, bringing the overall Department of Education allocation for the programme to €180 million.
The DEIS Identification process is based on the principle of concentrated disadvantage and the proportion of students from disadvantaged backgrounds within a school. The refined DEIS identification model, announced in March 2022, aimed to identify those schools with the highest levels of disadvantage or the highest proportion of students from disadvantaged backgrounds within a school using the school’s enrolment data and national census data as represented by the Pobal HP Deprivation index which is publicly available. The model takes into consideration the significant educational disadvantage experienced by children and young people who are experiencing homelessness. These cohorts were accounted for outside the HP index as it applies at small area level. There is a wide range of research which highlights the negative effects of a non-stable home environment on the ability of children to achieve their potential from education. The loss of stable housing can be accompanied by a loss in possessions and a break-up of the social supports for children. This can lead to negative impacts for children moving through important developmental processes in developing relationship and learning social roles. My Department engaged with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (DHLG) and with the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive (DRHE) to enable the secure and confidential sharing of the addresses of this State-funded emergency accommodation. A detailed document outlining the Refined DEIS Identification Model is published at www.gov.ie/en/publication/a3c9e-extension-of-deis-to-further-schools/.
The DEIS Plan is based on the premise that in order to have the maximum possible impact on providing opportunities for students most at risk of educational disadvantage, then extra resources need to be targeted as closely as possible at those students with the greatest level of need. This will involve further development of the existing DEIS programme, to create a more dynamic resource allocation model where levels of resources more accurately follow the levels of need identified by objective data. To support this work, my Department has invited the OECD Strength Through Diversity: Education for Inclusive Societies Project to review the current policy approach for the allocation of resources to support students at risk of educational disadvantage in Ireland, this is currently ongoing and the OECD team estimate that the review will be complete in Q2 of 2024. This review will provide an independent expert opinion on the current resource allocation model for the DEIS programme and, drawing on international examples, inform a policy approach for an equitable distribution of supplementary resources to support students at risk of educational disadvantage attending all schools, both DEIS and non-DEIS.
Tusla Education Support Service (TESS) has three strands, namely the Statutory Educational Welfare Service (EWS) and the two school support services the Home School Community Liaison Scheme (HSCL) and the School Completion Programme (SCP). The three TESS strands work together collaboratively with schools, families and other relevant services to achieve the best educational outcomes for children and young people.
Urban primary schools and all post-primary schools designated as DEIS can avail of Home School Community Liaison (HSCL) scheme and School Completion Programme supports provided by TESS to assist with school attendance, retention and progression, which can be areas of particular challenge to pupils experiencing homelessness. Educational Welfare Officers (EWO) work with DEIS and non DEIS schools, relevant state agencies and support services, providing support to families that are experiencing homelessness. In relation to specific supports in Dublin’s North East Inner City (NEIC), an Educational Welfare Officer (EWO) is assigned to work closely with the Dublin Region Homeless Executive (DRHE) and NGOs working with homeless families, to ensure that children and young people experiencing homelessness are supported to continue to access education and that they have a school place.
Additionally, the NEIC City Connects pilot project, currently running in ten NEIC primary schools, organises student support and leverages existing school and community-based resources in order to improve students’ academic and social-emotional outcomes. Linked to this, the NEIC Multidisciplinary Team (MDT) is an interagency collaboration, which comprises of Educational Psychologists from my Department’s National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS) and Health Service Executive (HSE) Speech and Language Therapists, Occupational Therapists and a Psychologist. The MDT teams provide a needs-based school service that responds to the presenting issues for each child, their family and school, in ten NEIC primary schools.
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 well-being, academic, social and emotional development of all learners. Identification of Need, Early Intervention and Prevention Strategies are considered key components to supporting children who experience homelessness. My Department’s Well-being Policy Statement and Framework for Practice describes how schools can best promote well-being through the provision of a whole-school, multi-component and preventative approach. In particular, 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 well-being and mental health, and to respond to meeting those needs.
In recognition that the cost of preparing children for school each September can be a cause of financial difficulty and worry for many Irish families, in 2023 I introduced a new scheme to provide free schoolbooks to pupils enrolled in recognised primary schools from the start of the 2023/24 school year. This scheme eliminates the cost to these families for all schoolbooks, workbooks and copybooks. A free schoolbooks scheme is also being introduced for the 2024/25 school year to cover all students enrolled in Junior Cycle years in all special schools and post-primary schools in the Free Education Scheme.
As in recent years, in 2024 all schools can offer a summer programme for children and young people with complex special educational needs and those at risk of educational disadvantage. The theme for this year’s programme is ‘Building Confidence and Connections’. The Summer Programme is intended to be an enjoyable experience for both students and staff. The range of activities available will reflect this year’s theme and include opportunities for student-centred, play-based engagement. This year’s programme is designed and developed to ensure supports are targeted to better assist children and young people to have access to a school-based programme. Schools that have significant numbers of children and young people at risk of or experiencing, homelessness can target these children for inclusion in a summer programme.
In addition, the Department of Social Protection operates both the Schools Meals Programme (SMP) and the Back to School Footwear and Clothing Allowance (BSFCA) which provides valuable support to families for their school-age children, including those experiencing homelessness.
My Department is represented on the National Homeless Action Committee chaired by Minister O’Brien. It is also fantastic to see that the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, has now established a subgroup which focuses on prevention and early intervention under the Youth Homelessness Strategy Steering Group. The first meeting of this subgroup took place on 10th April 2024 and it also includes a representative from my Department.
