Mr. Matt Buttery:

There are a number of points that overlap and there will be some differences also. I tried to do some maths last night so I can tell the committee that there are at least four Enable Ireland services that are using Stepping Stones. I believe that there are 12 HSE-funded services that are using Stepping Stones Triple P. It is a little hard to gauge the numbers. I believe we are probably reaching about 3% of parents who are dealing with developmental disability. This is over a nine-year period. If we compare this to the Australian example, which I have supplied to the committee, we see that in a relatively short period of time 38% of parents did engage. Of course, not all parents will want to engage. Some parents feel they do not need this help or support. We should not be telling parents what to do. This is about empowering parents, encouraging their self-regulation and helping them to set their own goals for their own families.

Stepping Stones fits perfectly with what the children's disability network teams, CDNTs, are delivering. It is a shame in some ways that St. Helena's representatives are not here because, as Deputy Ellis can also probably testify, there is a lovely partnership going on there. St. Helena's is one of the family resource centres that is funded by Tusla. There are some prevention, partnership and family support programme staff, PPFS, there who are delivering Stepping Stones Triple P through the family resource centre, which of course delivers a host of other services to families as well, normalising and de-stigmatising access to these sorts of services. Ms Gannon will say that she did not come along initially to Triple P by doing Stepping Stones Triple P. She just did our core programme which is group Triple P. During that process it was identified that her son, who already had ADHD, could potentially have autism and was referred on to the pathway for diagnosis. At that point the team was able to say that it had a specific programme for parents of children with additional needs. Ms Gannon went on to do that and subsequently told me on Monday night that she is going on to do our Fear-Less Triple P programme for parents of children with anxiety management challenges because her son struggles with anxiety as well. Putting in the family resource centre space is a really powerful thing.

Of course, we are working closely with the children's disability network team. Better Finglas is also involved in all of this with the area-based childhood, ABC programme. In this regard, we are seeing a lovely three-legged stool, where we have Tusla, the HSE and the voluntary community sector providing a range of services embedded within which are services for children with disability. Yes, it is part of CDNTs. My appeal is that the responsibility for the provision of these programmes by the CDNTs should be highlighted, whether or not they provide them directly. In Finglas, for example, they are not providing them directly and they are being provided by Tusla and via Barnardos and some of the other voluntary sector providers, but they are working in partnership so they can ensure that parents are getting access to these sorts of services. This is very important in terms of the reach.

The Australian example is a good one because - in exactly the same way as the issues in Ireland - they say that this stuff takes investment and money in order to upskill staff, but we can then bring parents into these programmes. We should make the point very clearly - one that has been recorded and reported quite a bit - that these programmes are not a substitute for the other services the child with additional needs might need. It is not the case that a family will get the parenting programme and then be asked to go away. There was an article in the journal.ieabout someone referring to "Nanny 911", and that it will solve the problems. That is not the case. If we can bring the parent in, that is the primary system within which the child exists and perhaps we can change the way the parent is thinking about the child, about the child's behaviour, and about antecedence around the behaviour.

Again, Ms Gannon gave a great example. Her sister had been giving her own son a chocolate bar to sort of shut him up when she feels that he is being annoying. Ms Gannon told her sister that one does not give a child a chocolate bar to reward bad behaviour, one gives a chocolate bar when he or she has done something good. It was a case of "Wow, she got it" and she picked up a very simple strategy that we can see is quite powerful in terms of rewarding and misbehaviour. There are other examples of children who refused to use sign language to speak because their parents were sometimes getting caught in the nurturers' trap. That is no criticism of the parents because this is natural feeling of the parent wanting to support the child additional needs. By using Stepping Stones we are able to put some simple boundaries in and the child starts to communicate more effectively. We see the child develop and we would see developmental growth in their communication skills and so on.

These programmes are really powerful if we can bring them alongside the other services such as physiotherapy and speech and language therapy, which are important for children with additional needs. We need to normalise and destigmatise parenting programmes for that. There actually is still a stigma associated with parenting programmes. It is less so for parents of children with additional needs but there is still a stigma. We conducted some survey work in the UK just as school started for these children and parents September. There were lots issues they were concerned about, particularly post-Covid, post the lockdowns, and given what is going on in Ukraine and so on. Of those surveyed, 75% said that they felt there was a stigma in asking for help with their parenting. This is despite the fact that they could quite powerfully be supportive of such training.