Ms Joan McCrohan:

We contacted the Association of Community and Comprehensive Schools, ACCS, which has a budget for providing training for teachers who work with children with special educational needs, because there are lots of empty seats at those training sessions in the education centres every year. We asked if we could put bums on seats by including the SNAs in the training, because we wanted them to get the same training as the teachers, especially if they were to look after children with challenging behaviour, particularly children with autism, so that they would all be singing from the same hymn sheet. However, we were told this was not allowed. Some education centres did allow it, but the SNAs could not get the accreditation and claim they were there. They were like ghosts on the seats.