Ms Anne Tansey:

I will come in on that question. The Department's approach to supporting the well-being of our children and young people in our school settings is set out in the Department's well-being policy and framework for practice which was published in 2018 and refreshed in 2019. This approach is founded on very strong research and best international practice in how schools can best support the well-being and mental health of children and young people. The approach proposed is that a whole-school preventative approach is put in place that has multiple components which include providing children with opportunities to build core social and emotional skills and competencies within school settings, providing children and young people with opportunities to experience supportive relationships within the school setting and to learn through those relationships and providing children and young people with opportunities to be part of a school environment and culture that feels both physically and psychologically safe. This is an environment in which children feel a sense of belonging and connectedness, in which their voice is heard and in which they feel supported. We are implementing that through encouraging schools to use a reflective school's self-evaluation process in order to identify the needs of their school community in the promotion of well-being and mental health and to identify what needs to be put in place in that respect.

There are a number of supports in place for schools in order to implement that approach to promoting well-being. These include supports that come from NEPS itself but also the support of our guidance counsellors within the school setting, from the National Council for Special Education, from the professional development service for teachers and from other support services.

I mentioned earlier the very specific interventions that NEPS puts in place in order to support schools to build key core emotional and social competencies of children and young people such as the Friends programmes and the trauma-informed programmes that we are currently piloting. Within the Department we have also developed guidelines on best practice for schools supporting children with autism. These guidelines are currently being finalised and will be made available to schools in the coming year.

We also promote student support teams at post-primary school level to co-ordinate support for children but also to facilitate links to the community and other non-school support services and our guidance counsellors also do this. Counselling is a key part of the role of the guidance counsellor and it is offered on an individual and group basis at particular times, particularly at transition points. The guidance counsellor also identifies and supports the referral of students to external counselling agencies and professionals, as required.

As the committee members may be aware, it is the Department of Health which has responsibility for the provision of counselling services in Ireland. It provides this for our children and young people through the primary care psychology services and the child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS.

Recently, the HSE and its funded providers have provided e-mental health services that offer online, text and telephone support to young people seeking mental health advice and information. That includes services provided through Jigsaw, SpunOut, Bodywhys, BeLonG To, Childline, and a range of other services. In our Department, we support the signposting within schools and for students to these HSE and HSE-funded services. We have built strong links with the Department of Health. We are exploring ways to improve supports for young people, including increased awareness and signposting to the range of available supports that are being provided by our colleagues in the Department of Health and the HSE. We will continue to collectively explore that.