Mr. Mark McDonald:

ETBI welcomes the invitation today to speak on this important topic alongside our submission. ETBs are currently patrons of 27 community national schools alongside being patrons of schools that cater for one third of all second-level schools, which is 100,000 students in Ireland.

We work in primary, post-primary and tertiary education. Those schools are welcoming, cater for learners from diverse backgrounds, are learner-centred and attempt to be holistic in everything they do. We try to support students not just academically but on a range of issues that present, one in particular being mental health issues in the past few years.

Covid-19 has definitely added to that issue although before that, we were severely challenged. Early intervention is key in preventing children from developing more complex mental health issues later in life. When schools are adequately resourced, they can play a vital role in the promotion of positive mental health. We have to recognise that at primary level, however, there are no formal access routes to in-school counselling services and there are no formal structures in all primary schools for supporting students' mental health. We call for the establishment of student support teams in primary schools to be fully supported. This could be achieved through a consultation process with the relevant bodies at primary level.

At post-primary level, we are very lucky to have the guidance counsellors who all work hard in this area. However, we need extended training in more therapeutic counselling rather than career guidance. Many schools at both primary and post-primary level have significant difficulties accessing supports for students with serious mental health issues. We heard from other contributors today on the increase in waiting lists to services such as child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS. Ultimately, however, many of these issues fall to the school to address. No matter what the level of resources or expertise, parents call on schools first.

Fundamentally, ETBI is of the view that a child-centred approach to mental health services is needed yet currently, various mental health services are working in isolation or in silos. We have a recent example in County Kerry where a number of agencies including NEPS, the counselling services and Jigsaw came together along with the schools. They have been brought together to provide training to the student support teams in our post-primary schools in the county. This multidisciplinary approach to training, which was led by NEPS, has led to significant improvements in the ways that student support teams in the county operate. We call for this to be looked at and extended.

We also have the challenge of school leaders not being fully sure on who to bring in to support students. It is the view of ETBI that mental health initiatives should seek approval from a national body such as the Department of Education or NEPS with clear criteria in order that schools can be confident the initiatives and the people they are bringing in are backed and authorised.

ETBs have a proud history of running professional learning networks, PLN. Teachers and school leaders come together to learn from the best and bring that back to the schools to extend out that learning. We ask and request that these PLNs be extended into the area of mental health. Teachers would need to be released to attend the PLNs and paid substitution would be needed for that. We also see NEPS having a role in providing these PLNs as the resident expert in this area.

We echo the call from previous speakers regarding initial teacher education, and mental health should be part of that.

However we also believe that all teachers need to be adequately trained on an ongoing basis to enable them to identify students and families who are struggling in terms of mental health and to provide the most appropriate ways to support them.

What ETBI is calling for is the establishment of student support teams at primary level and the backing of them at post-primary level, which would include an interdisciplinary approach to training those student support teams. We ask for the establishment of those professional learning networks to ensure that mental health is at the forefront and that this would be supported by NEPS. We ask that we develop an accredited mental health initiative which is overseen by either the Department or NEPS. We ask for increased investment in NEPS to allow for further training of school staff and the expansion into counselling services. We also ask for further exploration into establishing the school-based mental health support teams, which this committee has already started to look at.

As a former principal who has only been out of the position 14 months, I know the role that schools can play, which we have heard about today. The key thing for me is that schools are nearly always the first stop for parents when they have an issue with mental health. They go to schools, which do their best to support that. However, we need further training and resources in that area.