Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 26 January 2023
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Disability Matters
Family-Centred Practice and Parent Training Interventions: Discussion
Ms Angela O'Neill:
That comes back to the Deputy's piece around education, which I had forgotten. The drive for assessment often comes from the education sector because parents need the diagnosis to access the placement in the special school or in the autism spectrum disorder, ASD, unit or whatever. The Deputy mentioned SNAs. We have done substantial work over the past number of years, with our colleagues in the National Council for Special Education, on taking the focus away from needing the reports to get an SNA. You no longer, therefore, need the report from the CDNT to look for the SNA. There is the school inclusion model and they have changed their way of providing SNA resources or resource teaching. It takes the pressure off the requirement to have a report. The outstanding piece is the placement in the special class of the special school. We will continue to work with them on it. Deputy Cairns has asked how we fix the crisis. It is multifaceted and it is not all within the control of the HSE. We have to work with a range of stakeholders to make those changes.
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