Mr. Noel Kelly:

I will take a shot at some of the questions. What can be done in schools is all about leadership. If the leadership in the school is open and welcomes and embraces parents, then all kinds of things are possible. Unfortunately, the opposite can be the case and the leadership might be fearful of parents or reluctant to engage. There are many schools that make it quite difficult for parents to actually enter their premises. We put up all kinds of barriers and buzzers and that makes it quite challenging. Obviously, schools have to operate and function but there is room for interaction. It is about accessibility and creating a welcoming atmosphere whereby all the adults on the school staff, if they see a parent, will pop over, say hello, and ask how they are and who they are looking for. It is about creating that positive atmosphere. My colleagues might have more to say about that.

Reference was made to the ABC programmes. I am fortunate enough to have come from there. I have been managing an ABC programme for the past ten years. When one has been around as long as I have, one can dip one's toe into lots of different things. Certainly, we are now embracing some of the really good, evidence-based work that is happening there, particularly through our school completion programme. We have the opportunity to embed some of the evidence-based approaches in that programme. We have also worked very closely with the home school community liaison scheme and the school completion programme. Educational welfare officers are involved in quite a few of the ABC programmes. We would absolutely see the benefits in this regard, particularly in the context of early intervention.

Another really good development is that it is now part of the home school liaison's role to engage with the children in preschool. While many people would have been doing that already, it is now a part of the role that they have to embrace and manage the transition and support families before the children even arrive in a school.

Regarding Deputy Jan O'Sullivan's question about Traveller children and homeless children, the reality is that we know that approximately 50% of children who come from DEIS primary schools migrate to non-DEIS post-primary schools, which is a real challenge. From our point of view, the one aspect of our service that serves all schools is the statutory education welfare services. Where we find the need for support or where families come to our attention, we will support them but, again, we are quite a thin service. We have one welfare officer for every 50 schools, so it is not a very comprehensive service.