Ms Anne O'Rourke:

I thank the Chairperson, Deputies and Senators for inviting me to meet them to discuss inclusive education. I am an educational psychologist working part-time in private practice in Galway, offering consultation and educational psychology services. I am also a family caregiver and am here in a private capacity. Prior to working in private practice, I worked as a senior psychologist with NEPS for the best part of 20 years. I also spent 17 years as a teacher in mainstream and special education settings in Ireland and the UK. There is a broad range of topics for consideration by the committee. I will do my best to touch on as many as I can within the time allowed.

I welcome the commitment made by the Department of Education and Youth as part of the National Human Rights Strategy for Disabled People to develop a roadmap for inclusive education underpinned by the vision incorporated in Article 24 of the UNCRPD. Understanding the broad system of support is complicated due to the different models used to identify need for intervention and to allocate resources. A medical model identifying disability with a focus on deficit and within child factors seems to be the model that underpins services and resources in the HSE and the Department of Social Protection. It also comes into play when applying for special class or school placements and, currently, for funding for assistive technology in education. In these instances, the criteria outlined in Department of education circulars based on the disability categories in the SERC report from 1993 must be met.

In contrast, for access to all other supports and resources within education, a holistic and biopsychosocial model is used whereby the strengths and needs of learners are identified and schools are front-loaded with SET and SNA support to meet the children’s identified needs without the need to have a professional report or diagnosis. The continuum of support is the educational framework used by schools to identify, plan for and respond to the needs of learners with SEN. This model is needs-led, flexible and responsive and does not put the burden on parents to have a professional report or diagnosis to access support.

In my view, a needs-led approach should be extended to all aspects of supports for children with additional needs, including education settings. Parents frequently mention the difficulty in finding information about services, the ongoing struggle to access assessments and supports and the extensive paperwork required. Many feel that an AON is the only way to secure supports, but there is no guarantee as to when an AON will take place or when the supports will be provided. Recently, parents have asked me to do assessments to secure special class placements at junior infant level, fearing limited availability at post primary. Others, whose children are doing well in mainstream, are concerned about future access to SET, SNA, SLT, OT or other supports, and believe special schools may offer better access when the NCSE in-school therapy initiative begins. It is essential that this scheme also provides in-reach services to special classes in mainstream schools and is rapidly extended to all schools. It could be possible to identify some children who require a special class setting or a special school placement using a needs-led approach based on their response to intervention and the continuum of support. This might result in a more flexible approach to special classes where children have opportunities to be included in mainstream classes from time to time if that is appropriate. Also, if special schools were co-located with mainstream schools, children in special schools would have better opportunities to be included in the mainstream setting, again, subject to their needs and strengths.

While in NEPS, I worked at primary and post-primary levels in urban and rural settings with responsibility for the provision of educational psychology support to between 30 and 46 schools in any given year. In my experience, schools value NEPS as a school-based service that, in addition to casework with individual learners, provides support and development work, consultation, and evidence-based training programmes for teachers, in areas such as trauma-informed practice and managing anxiety. They are also valued for facilitating the sharing of best practice and the rapid response to critical incidents. NEPS has a broad remit and supports the well-being, inclusion and participation of all learners, but the pupil to psychologist ratio in Ireland is much higher than in other countries. There is an obvious need to increase the number of educational psychologists in NEPS to align with the numbers in other countries so that service delivery can be optimised for schools, learners and their families. NEPS would also be supported through the introduction of an assistant educational psychologist role.

There is a huge need for dedicated time for special education-related administrative tasks, for continuous professional learning opportunities for all teachers to support inclusion and a higher level of training on SEN in pre-service teacher training at both primary and post-primary levels. In summary, we need a model that appreciates the unique strengths of every learner, a clearer definition of inclusion, better family support, early and responsive interventions, enhanced NEPS resources, enhanced teacher professional learning, expanded in-school therapy and skilled support staff. These measures will help ensure all learners experience true, meaningful inclusion in our educational settings. I look forward to contributing to the debate.