Seymour Crawford
Ceist:57 Mr. Crawford asked the Minister for Education and Science the number of education welfare officers in place; the number to be recruited in 2004; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5284/04]
Amharc ar fhreagraThursday, 19 February 2004
Ceisteanna (65)
Freagraí scríofa
The Education (Welfare) Act, which was fully commenced on 5 July 2002, established the National Educational Welfare Board to ensure that every child attends school regularly or otherwise receives an education. To discharge its responsibilities, the board is developing a nationwide service to provide welfare focused services to children, families and schools. It has appointed a chief executive officer, directors of corporate and educational services and a further eight head office staff. Some 53 educational welfare staff have been appointed to date, including 29 former school attendance officers who transferred to the board from the pre-existing service. The board has recently advertised a competition to fill a further 15 vacancies which will bring the total staff complement to 84, including 68 service delivery staff.
As provided for under section 10 of the Education (Welfare) Act 2000, I have arranged for officials from my Department to work with the board to ensure that 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. 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 is very important. The protocols will assist the NEWB in carrying out its remit and will ensure that available existing resources are utilised to the full. It is essential that the board should focus on ways in which it can deliver the service with the personnel it has the moment and with the help of other people involved in the area. When this has been achieved I will reconsider the position, taking into account the available resources.
At this stage of its development, the aim of the board is to provide a service to the most disadvantaged areas and the most at-risk groups. Five regional teams have been established with bases in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford. Staff have been deployed since early December in areas of greatest disadvantage and in areas designated under the Government's RAPID programme. Thirteen towns with significant school going populations, 12 of which are designated under the Government's RAPID programme, have an educational welfare officer allocated to them. These towns are Dundalk, Drogheda, Navan, Athlone, Carlow, Kilkenny, Wexford, Bray, Clonmel, Tralee, Ennis, Sligo and Letterkenny. In addition, the board will follow up on urgent cases nationally where children are not receiving an education.