Mr. Craig Petrie:

They are disparate groups and that is the problem. One thing that unifies them is the child or family in crisis. These issues are happening within the education sphere but they are health difficulties. It needs to be between the Departments of Health and Education that we have some oversight of this or someone to tie the issues together. We need a pathway. Of course, we need more therapists and psychologists, but we need to tie our groups together better, and that falls within education because health is too distant from us as schools to make that happen.

We schools are the first port of call. Our chaplains and guidance counsellors are the people to whom these children come. They graduate to our student support teams and then we look to make a referral, and that is the point where things are breaking down, from where I am sitting as a principal. We need a dedicated pathway. Within the children’s disability network teams, CDNTs, there are people in charge of looking after assessments of need, AON-----