Ms Moira Leydon:

I thank the Chair. I am conscious colleagues that I am the seventh speaker in a row and, therefore, I will do what I will call a little mop-up operation and the committee has the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland, ASTI, submission which they can consult for a refinement of the policies. I wish to make three remarks. Number one, we welcome the opportunity. I love that concept developed by Maureen Gaffney - "Flourishing". Well-being is something that is more than just an individual matter. Failure to flourish at school or college is never an individual problem it is a societal problem and as Maureen has said schools are the optimal sites for responding to mental health difficulties for young people.

We have not mentioned the extent of the problem and the prevalence of the problem around the table and I think it is important. Two major pieces of research are referred to.

In 2013, research by the Royal College of Surgeons demonstrated that by the age of 13, one in three children had experienced a mental health difficulty. By the age of 24, that had increased to one in two. It is clear that youth and adolescence are times when significant life and health challenges are addressed and that is the optimal time to intervene. As Mr. Honer said, recent research by NUI Maynooth found that young people aged 18 to 24 are eight times more likely to have mental health difficulties than the older population. It is a bit like the housing crisis talk about the "squeezed youth" they are really facing a barrage of life challenges. Of course, the impact of Covid-19, anxiety, stress, depression are beginning to surface and manifest.

We have not mentioned around the table, and I think it is kind of important, the extent of the problem and the prevalence of the problem. There are two major pieces of research that are referred to. First is the 2013 Royal College of Surgeons research which found that by the age of 13 one in three children had experienced a mental health difficulty. By the age of 24 that had increased to one in two. It is very clear that youth and adolescence are times when significant life challenges and health challenges are addressed and that is the optimal time to intervene. As Mr. Honer said, recent research by NUI Maynooth hsa found that young people aged 18 to 24 are eight times more likely to have mental health difficulty than older populations. It is a bit like the housing crisis we talk about the 'squeezed youth'. They are really facing a barrage of life challenges and of course the impact of Covid-19 anxiety, stress, depression are beginning to surface and manifest.

We are here today because committee members are legislators and they inform and make policy. I always think it is good to come with a shopping list because the committee needs to know how it can help given it is genuinely concerned about these social problems. From ASTI's perspective, there are a number of core areas that the committee needs to intervene in quickly. First, the committee needs to address the situation as regards guidance counselling in schools. Teachers are contracted to teach 22 hours, the allocation ratio for guidance counsellors in a school of 500 pupils is 18 hours so they are not even getting a full-time guidance counsellor.

The allocation ratio has to be changed in light of that as it has been around for the past 30 years. Second, according to research I picked up this morning from the Institute of Guidance Counselling that they conducted this year, in 10% of the schools they surveyed the guidance counsellor was not practising as he or she was too burned out. Some 22% schools had unqualified internal staff filling the role and 26% of schools had external advisers coming in to fill the role. We have a crisis in the guidance counselling service that has to be addressed.

The other crisis is in area of the child and adolescent mental health service, CAMHS. CAMHS is a brilliant service if one gets into it. It is a bit like the health service. The waiting list is absolutely critical. We have waiting lists for up to 18 months. That is completely not the way to sort out the problem of a child with a mental health issue. There is also the variability across the regions and there was a dreadful incidence of other issues in the service last summer.

I like to think politics works and I was impressed by the way this committee heard from Dr. Paul Downes from the Dublin City University, DCU, Disadvantage Centre last year. He made a compelling case about the need to supplement the guidance counselling service in schools with emotional counselling and therapeutic supports to address the mental health issues manifesting among young people. I urge all Oireachtas Members to look at Dr. Downes's 2017 research on a sample of young men who are homeless in Dublin and the reasons for their homelessness and as someone who works for teachers and is very proud of our education system, how they fell through the gaps in the system at second level. It is truly sad but can be remediated and I urge committee members to look at that and at the recommendations he has in it.

Mr. Duffy had made the point in respect of school leadership that we need more posts. Teacher training is essential and we have a further crisis in teacher training in that teachers are now not able to get a day out of school to go to necessary training because of the supply issue. When these crises are not addressed, they become much more complex to solve.

Mr. Jones addressed a topic that is under-addressed when we talk about well-being and mental health, which is the whole area of teacher well-being. The 2015 guidelines for well-being in the junior cycle make the point that student well-being starts with staff. They are on the front line of the work and it is hard for them to be genuinely motivated to promote emotional and social well-being if they feel uncared for or burnt out themselves. Perhaps this is an area the committee may wish to look at into the future. We need to address the issue of well-being among our teaching workforce, including at third level. It is at a really serious level. Naturally I would have lots of other things to say but I will conclude on that. We did not get around to curriculum, which is a vital area for intervention for youth mental health but we are not just here to talk; we are here to listen and to respond to the committee.