Mr. Adam Harris:

I thank the Deputy. The first point she made is really important because while we acknowledge there seems to be very significant issues in getting the required data from CDNTs, from our engagements with the Department we have not been able to ascertain any issue with the fundamentals of the approach that had been in place. What we are doing is throwing the baby out with the bath water. A system is failing so we are moving away from the system that people had confidence in as a result of that. That is where we need to ask ourselves what the alternatives were and I will come to that in a minute.

Indeed, there are more than 14,000 SETs within our schools and we recognise that has increased significantly in recent years. When the model started, one in 65 children in our schools had an autism diagnosis. We now know that at least one in 27 children do and that is before we recognise many more are on a waiting list. We know this data is not an outlier. It is exactly what we see across Europe. The reality is any increase in investment is not a real increase. It is struggling to keep apace with the level of demand that is growing.

In terms of the advocacy forum, this emerged on the back of the Covid-19 pandemic where we raised very similar concerns about the education of children who really could not access learning at home. The only voice that was not at the table around the reopening of schools was very often the children most affected by that decision. The idea of the advocacy forum was meant to be a no-surprises piece. It was meant to be that the voice of the child from our community would be heard at the same time as those powerful stakeholder groups. The advocacy forum has not worked in that regard. There continue to be surprises whether it is this issue or the special education centres from 18 months ago. We really need to see a line drawn under that now so that we are seen as equal stakeholders. That is why I think we need a formal reassurance of that from the Department arising from today.

As somebody who had an SNA, I have huge time for the work they do but there is a difference in the role. SNAs are there to meet care needs. Special education teachers are there to support people in accessing the curriculum. What is different though is transparency. With an SNA families are often very aware whether their child has access or not. What the SET allocation model has fundamentally done is created a lack of transparency for families. They do not know what their child is entitled to. They do not know what their child is receiving. The Department places such an emphasis on the student support plan but the reality is so many of our young people simply do not have one of those so it is very hard for families to keep abreast.

Finally, with regard to complex needs as an organisation AsIAm believes we need away from seeing the child as having complex needs towards the supports the child might need. It might be more significant in addressing the barriers they face. Perhaps that would be the child using an AAC device, a child with a co-occurring diagnosis, or a child who has sensory needs that are such that accessing the curriculum in the mainstream classroom is challenging and they need more support. One of the things that is frustrating on which we can all agree is we should demedicalise the process. We should all agree we should focus on education need as opposed to medical or care need in the context of this discussion. The Department has a definition of this. Last summer, page 7 of the summer programme guidelines clearly defined what complex special educational needs are

We, therefore, have no idea why a kind of mystery has been created around that topic whereas we seem to have all had a shared understanding only last summer. The data that would help schools determine based on those guidelines is the data the Department wanted schools to use as part of a statutory assessment of need process but now we are told does not have a relevance or is not useful for this process.