Ms Mary Nolan:

My organisation is part of the Strive partnership that works within special schools dealing with additional needs, including young people with autism. We focused on that because young people with special needs were being targeted as a result of their vulnerability. They were easily recruited into drug-running paramilitarism and even violence in interface areas. As the young people who go through Newstart Education Centre are aware, it is located very close to the major interfaces, between Springfield Road and Shankill Road. It is one of the major interfaces, and where the trouble erupted the last time.

Ms Holohan may wish to come in on the response to Covid. I will leave that topic for my colleagues.

As regards autism, the challenges we are facing are astronomical because kids are coming through primary school without a diagnosis. When they get to secondary school, they are then fed into special needs schools where they are treated completely differently. If they had been in special needs schools earlier, it would have made a significant difference to them. Their lives are completely in turmoil by the time they get to 13 or 14 years of age.