Ms Marian Quinn:

I have worked for 18 years with many children who received additional supports in a mainstream service. In that service it was not so much finding out what was wrong with a child before he or she came but of a child coming into a setting and seeing what additional supports were needed. It was a question which was asked as to how it could be done. If we are valued and recognised as professionals who have received training - this is why training is hugely important to enable us to be professional when it comes to inclusion and the question of how to include - regardless of whether a child has an additional need as a result of a disability or condition or being part of an ethnic minority or from a disadvantaged area, it is all about inclusion. If I am sufficiently professional to know it when such a child comes into my service, I will know whether I can include him or her very well by myself without needing anything. Perhaps I might need resources to buy things to make the child be more visual in the setting in order that he or she can see himself or herself within it and develop his or her identity as a result. At other times, however, I will be able to acknowledge that I am obliged to spend a lot of additional time with the child in question, which is time I will be unable to spend with the other children and perhaps the person who is in the room with me essentially will be left with 20 other children. I will then know that I need additional personnel. That is where the community employment scheme was particularly beneficial in community services - I worked in a community service in the afternoon while at the same time working in the independent service - and it was evident that by having these additional personnel, they were able to continue the work, under supervision, with everybody else. For us, however, they were supernumerary; therefore, we had our core staff and were then able to employ additional assistants. It may now be necessary to provide this through a fund in order that we will be in a position to include the child or call on this support as needed.

On opting for the special needs assistant, SNA, model, I carried out research with a colleague into SNAs in primary schools and the finding - looking across the board - was that children who needed the most support were being supported by the least qualified personnel and that this was not helping the children particularly. When one considers the position in Ireland in terms of the qualifications required to be an SNA, essentially, it is junior certificate. SNAs have to undertake some training, which I acknowledge is good. I had colleagues apply for an SNA job only to be told they were overqualified, despite having had received significant training on how to deal with children with additional needs. However, because they had FETAC level 6 qualifications at the time - some of them now have degrees - they were told they were overqualified for the post because they did not need such qualifications. They were told a SNA needed to be present to keep a child from running away, to help him or her go to the toilet or to help him or her with feeding. That is not a great model.