Ms Lisa Marie Clinton:

I thank Deputy Joan Collins for her questions. The mandate for the US is legally by 16, although some states go earlier at 14. We must bear in mind that education for those with disabilities goes up to the age of 21. That provides a considerable amount of time to work on that transition goal. I love the fact that the requirement is from 16. That allows all that preparation time for the individual and the family. As was mentioned, you go through school and you have so many supports and then there is a cliff-edge. Parents do not want to leave education because they have had this security blanket for so long. Everyone wins from this approach, therefore. The onus is that you are building those relationships with the employment agencies, which understand the adult space, including third level education, local employers and the services that are needed. The employment agencies have connections with the funders for job coaching, assisted technology, travel or whatever it may be, to help people to be successful. There is a requirement that a plan is built out for what an individual wants to do with their lives and who needs to be involved at that early stage. Then it is reviewed on an annual basis.

As Ms Tonge mentioned, we are not saying there are no transition services in Ireland. There is definitely no mandate to ensure that every child has a transition plan in education. We have seen examples of programmes that schools may implement. We have a Quality and Qualifications Ireland, QQI, level programme and there are some other programmes but we must ask if that is enough. It might be down to the discretion of the school, which may not have the funding to implement something like that. We work with an agency in Ireland, WALK, which is quite innovative but it had to seek grants to avail of funding for itself.

On schools, I spoke to an organisation called Outside the Box Learning Resources yesterday.

When it looks at technology, it is for self-funded options. I know there is a push from the Minister towards digital technology but it might not be enough. An allocation might have to go elsewhere before schools are able to utilise technology to achieve goals. Of course we would like to do more and I have some thoughts on this. Many organisations dealing with employment and schools have reached out because they have an interest in the case studies and validations we have. I want to do more and the reason I developed Avail Support was to implement locally for the needs in the schools with which I have relationships. We have learned lessons from the US and I hope we will do more here.