The National Educational Welfare Board was established to ensure that every child attends school regularly or otherwise receives an education. The board is developing a nationwide service to provide welfare-focused services for children, families and schools. The board's authorised staffing complement is 84. It has recently advertised a competition to fill 15 vacancies. When these vacancies are filled the staff composition will be as follows: 11 head office staff and 65 educational welfare staff supported by eight clerical support staff.
As provided for under section 10 of the Education (Welfare) Act 2000, I have arranged for officials of my Department to work with the board to ensure that any opportunities for integrated working between educational welfare officers and staff on other educational disadvantage programmes whose work involves a school attendance element are exploited to the maximum. I consider the implementation of protocols for such integrated working on attendance matters between the NEWB and, in particular, the home-school-community liaison scheme, the school completion programme and the visiting teacher service for Travellers, to be very important. When in place, these will assist the NEWB in carrying out its remit and ensure that all available existing resources are utilised to the full. I consider it essential that the board should focus on ways in which it can deliver the service with its authorised personnel and with the help of other personnel involved in the area. When this has been achieved, I will consider the position again taking into account the available resources.
The duties of the educational welfare officer include: fostering an appreciation of the value of education; advising schools and parents on school attendance issues and on strategies to promote regular school attendance; dealing with poor attendance or early school leaving case referrals from schools using a welfare-orientated approach; and initiating legal proceedings under the Act, where appropriate.
The duties of the home-school-community liaison co-ordinator include developing processes for active co-operation between home, school and relevant community agencies in promoting the educational interests of the children and visiting parents' homes. School attendance issues and learning needs are commonly discussed during these visits. Their duties also include developing parents as prime educators, enabling them to support their children's learning and addressing, through a local committee, school-related issues in the community which impinge on attendance and learning. There is significant scope for integrated working between educational welfare officers and home-school-community liaison co-ordinators and discussions between the NEWB and officials of my Department are continuing with a view to finalising protocols for this as soon as possible.
Section 21 of the Act requires the principal of a recognised school to inform an educational welfare officer in writing where a pupil is absent from school for more than 20 days or where he or she is of the view that a student is not attending school regularly.
Additional information not given on the floor of the House.
This covers cases in which a student under the age of 16 drops out of school entirely and the NEWB has put procedures in place to classify all such cases as urgent and prioritise them accordingly. Arrangements are also in place in the areas covered by my Department's school completion programme to target children under 16 who have dropped out of school for particular support, with the aim of ensuring their earliest possible return to full-time education. I am satisfied that these procedures address the issue of responsibility for children who drop out of school early.
