Ms Anne Tansey:

We have been considering the well-being of the school community and our students and pupils as we plan for the reopening of schools. We expect a broad range of responses when we go back to school, ranging from children and their parents being happy and relieved to get back to school to some children being fearful and nervous. We have taken advice from the HSE and the Department of Health regarding the best approach to support these children as they return to school and they have advised us in two ways. First, they have advised that the approach we use should be underpinned by the promotion of a sense of safety, connectedness, calm and hope within the school community and within everything we do. Second, they have advised that we put in place a graduated, tiered level of responses, which range from a universal approach to targeted responses for children with greater need and those with a need for individual support. That is what we are planning in that respect. We are planning to accept and communicate the need to normalise the range of feelings children will experience. We need to put proactive strategies in place for well-being as we return to school and have a settling-in period where children can readjust, rebuild the connections and relationships they previously had in school and reconnect with their friends and learning in school before they settle into learning.

We are planning for a range of supports that will be available for those children who struggle to come back to school. There will be children who are reluctant school attenders and children who have experienced loss, grief and bereavement during the period of school closure. There are vulnerable groups that we know of already, such as children with special educational needs and other children who are vulnerable. We are planning a range of supports for these children, working through the structures that exist in schools, including the student support team structure at post-primary level and the special education teams at post-primary and primary levels.

NEPS psychologists will work to support these structures in schools. We will seek to build capacity with the other service providers at the Department of Education and Skills and with colleagues in the Departments of Health and Children and Youth Affairs. We are working with our HSE colleagues to ensure a range of individual supports are available for those children who present with the greatest need and who continue to struggle and need more individualised support. We have ongoing engagement with our colleagues at the Department of Health and the HSE to ensure a range of supports is available for our children as we plan the return to school.