Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 31 January 2023

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Autism

Autism Policy: Discussion (Resumed)

Ms Jill McCanney:

On developments in the LSA service, it is important to note that every time we work with a single child or young person, there is a rolling out to the whole school. That is a very strong part of our capacity-building model. While we are working individually with one child or young person, because we build a capacity of other professionals working with that child or young person we actually reach a much greater population. That is driven by the model of whole-school intervention that we have developed in Northern Ireland. That puts in place a model which allows us to build on the capacity of the whole school but in a much broader context. That is proving very effective.