Ms Jill McCanney:

I will take members through the LSA. This service delivers intensive assessment and learning support for autistic children and young people, who despite specialist input from first level services, continue to experience difficulties in their educational setting. The service provides: support for children and young people for up to ten months according to need; a detailed transdisciplinary assessment and learning support plan; specific training and capacity building for those working with the child and young person referred or nominated to the service, and home support and advice for parents in respect of their child’s education.

The LSA team includes specialist teachers, specialist occupational therapists, specialist speech and language therapists, autism intervention officers and learning support officers.

The LSA team works across both home and school settings and any other relevant contexts, such as respite centres and extracurricular activity settings. School and home visits are carried out weekly, providing consistent implementation of recommended supports, modifications and strategies. Training is made available to the child’s school, family and any other professionals or carers supporting the young person.

Individual children and young people referred to the centre receive the same model of assessment and learning support, as I just outlined, in both Ireland and Northern Ireland. There are, however, key differences in the LSA service delivery across the two jurisdictions. The first is that the LSA service in Ireland continues to be a pilot project. The number of children and young people referred annually from Northern Ireland ranges from 60 to 66 while 12 referrals are made annually in Ireland. The focus in Ireland continues to be on the delivery of training for parents, which falls within the remit of the LSA service. A whole-school referral framework has been initiated in Northern Ireland, in which the Education Authority nominates schools to receive the LSA service. An accreditation award has been established by LSA in Northern Ireland. Schools that have completed the whole-school referral process can request accreditation. Members of the LSA team assess schools against an agreed set of accreditation criteria and award schools accordingly. To date, three schools have received the accreditation award.