Ms Anne Tansey:

On the national roll-out of CPD regarding the implementation of the Department's well-being policy, we conducted an action research project over the past two years with the Professional Development Service for Teachers, PDST, in order to find the best way of supporting schools in this way. We want to provide a sustained level of support. We want to use a clustering model where schools come together and share best practice. In that way, they learn from one another. From autumn, the PDST will be rolling out a programme of support that will be accessible to all schools over the next three years. It will be a sustained model and clustered arrangement.

In parallel with that, NEPS will be rolling out a national programme to support schools. I have heard other speakers before the committee talk about therapeutically informed practice in schools. Through the provision of a series of workshops and webinars for schools, NEPS will support schools in understanding and learning more about therapeutically informed practice. We will be looking, for example, at the principles of cognitive behaviour therapy and how they can be applied in schools in appropriate and child-friendly ways. We will also be looking at trauma informed practice and what we call attachment aware schools. We will be raising the awareness and knowledge of the schools to ensure they can understand behaviour better and respond to it in what we call a therapeutically appropriate way.

The restorative justice programme will be rolled out by the PDST, starting again this autumn.