Joe McHugh (Donegal, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a ghabháil leis an Teachta O'Loughlin agus na Teachtaí éagsúla ar an gcoiste fá choinne an tuarascáil seo a chur chun cinn. Tá an díospóireacht chuimsitheach agus leathan seo tábhachtach don ghlúin seo agus don chéad ghlúin eile. I welcome and acknowledge the members of the committee and Deputy O'Loughlin and Members of this House for their ongoing interest in this and it is important to have this comprehensive and wide-ranging debate on an important matter.

I welcome this opportunity to address the House on the Joint Committee on Education and Skills report on positive mental health in schools. The topic is significant and worthy of the full consideration of this House. The matter at its core concerns the country’s most important and valuable national asset, our children, and how we support their development so that they may participate fully in society equipped with skills and competencies, experience and learning. Our schools occupy a pivotal position, second only to the family, in respect of supporting the development of our children. It is the task, and indeed the privilege, of the overall school community that such responsibility is entrusted to it. Children develop best in an environment which is caring, supportive and which caters for their individual need. While society has always exerted particular pressures on the young, in today’s age of new technology and rapid social change, a new iteration of challenges faces our children.

It is important that we notice and support the development of key skills and provide opportunities to enhance and promote their well-being and mental health within this ever evolving context in order that they thrive and flourish.

It is in this context that I welcome the input and insight of the joint committee in the report to hand. My predecessor as Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Bruton, was pleased to welcome the report, which was launched in September of last year. Indeed one of my first actions upon my appointment in this role last week was to appear before the joint committee on this important matter and, as I said last week to Deputy Thomas Byrne and to reassure him again, I am happy to ensure that ongoing engagement happens on this important topic. I thank all the committee members and its Chairman for their cordial welcome and constructive debate on well-being promotion in schools.

I gave an undertaking at that meeting to provide additional information to the committee on a number of items and I expect to be in a position to respond to the committee regarding those issues in the coming days, not in the coming weeks or months, as my officials assure me that will happen in the coming days.

In preparation for that committee session, and amid all the understandable challenges in taking up my new role, I took the opportunity to familiarise myself with the content, focus and recommendations of the report on positive mental health in schools. The work is the product of a priority in the committee’s 2017 work plan and included presentations from a number of eminent and noteworthy experts, who I also acknowledge. Upon reading the report I was struck immediately by the clear and concise observations of the joint committee in their deliberations on the matter. The report acknowledges that critical and creative thinking, processing information and working with others are absolutely essential to enable young people to navigate their way in the world and prepare them for life and not just for future employment opportunities. It recognises that the education system must support children to be confident and have the ability to achieve their full potential in whatever role they take. The mental health of children should be placed at the heart of the education system and more needs to be done to support students and teachers both inside and outside the classroom. There needs to be greater integration between the whole community and schools in order to effectively promote positive mental health in schools.

The committee concluded that mental health issues are complex and that there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Furthermore, the committee noted that school and the interactions between teachers and students play a hugely important role in promoting positive mental health amongst young people. In issues regarding mental health, early intervention is considered critical. Adopting these recommendations would put the needs of both teachers and students first and allow teachers to have the resources necessary to ensure that all interactions between teachers and students are constructive and promote well-being and positive mental health within the school community as a whole.

The report also sets out some 20 recommendations in areas including support for teachers through training and resources, the need for effective anti-bullying measures, the importance of connectedness between students and their communities, the need for enhanced inter-agency collaboration and reviewing the college entry process.

I am pleased to inform this House that there is a large degree of confluence between the report’s recommendations and my Department’s existing and developing policy on well-being and mental health in our school system. Schools and centres for education are crucial to the ongoing development of our children and young people’s well-being and we are fortunate to have schools that already do much to enhance children and young people's knowledge and skills in this area.

The Department of Education and Skills has a key role to play in the promotion of the well-being of children and young people, in collaboration with the Departments of Health, and Children and Youth Affairs, and with other Departments and agencies. My Department adopts a holistic and integrated approach to supporting schools in promoting well-being and positive mental health. The process spans the curriculum in schools, whole-school ethos, quality of teaching, learning and assessment, student support and pastoral care and the provision of professional development for teachers. It also involves other supports such as educational psychological services and guidance services and the interface with other agencies, both nationally and locally.

The Department's three year action plan for education sets out a number of objectives and proposed actions specifically targeting the promotion of well-being and positive mental health in our school communities. These actions build upon and complement well-being promoting measures that are already in place. They include improved curriculum content, including the introduction of the junior cycle well-being programme; more training for teachers and school staff, including the roll-out of evidence-based programmes to promote social and emotional competence, resilience and school connectedness; the introduction of best practice models of school-based student support teams; and a significant increase in the number of National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS, psychologists as part of the programme for Government commitment. I had an opportunity to meet the team in Letterkenny on Monday to see the work in which they are involved. It is a challenge for many parts of Ireland to get around the geography and the nature of schools being in different geographical locations. I am very conscious of the resourcing of NEPS psychologists. Another measure is the restoration of guidance posts.

A key objective in the 2018 action plan for education was the publication of the Department's well-being policy statement and framework for practice, which was launched in July this year, providing an overarching structure encompassing existing, ongoing and developing work in the area of well-being promotion. The well-being policy statement and framework for practice for 2018 to 2023 sets out the ambition and vision of the Department of Education and Skills that, by 2023, the promotion of well-being will be at the core of the ethos of every school and centre for education, that all schools will provide evidence-informed approaches and support, appropriate to need, to promote the well-being of their students and that Ireland will be recognised as a leader in this area.

The well-being policy statement and framework for practice describes how schools can best promote well-being. In practice, such schools are those that recognise the importance of well-being promotion, where the voices of children and young people are heard and where they experience a sense of belonging and feel safe, connected and supported. They are schools which provide children and young people with positive experiences, high quality teaching and learning and in which approaches to well-being are developed, implemented and self-evaluated. Furthermore, they are schools that can point students and their parents to internal and external pathways to support, as needed. The well-being policy statement sets out the evidence base for best practice in relation to school well-being promotion, which indicates that schools should adopt a whole-school, multi-component, preventative approach to well-being promotion that includes both universal and targeted interventions.

A whole-school approach involves all in the school community engaging in a collaborative process to improve areas of school life that impact on well-being. This will be achieved through the use of a school self-evaluation process taking well-being promotion as its focus. It will also allow schools to benchmark their practice against indicators of success and statements of effective practice and identify areas for development, implementation and review. It is envisaged that schools will engage with the statements and adapt and develop the best practice items as they meet the needs in their own school community. I am conscious, as a strong advocate for not recreating wheels, that many schools have well-being policies anyway. Many teachers, whether of physics, mathematics or physical education, are already doing the well-being work in a comprehensive way. I am conscious of that and of the many circulars that teachers have to deal with. I do not want to see this as a further bureaucratic role. We have to be practical and approach this with common sense.

A multi-component approach encourages schools to address areas not only relating to teaching and learning but also relating to other essential elements of well-being promotion including school culture and environment, policy and planning, and relationships and partnerships. Working preventatively and providing for both universal and targeted approaches is described as providing a continuum of support. Schools are encouraged to provide supports to promote the well-being of all within the school community as well as providing some targeted interventions for children and young people presenting with vulnerabilities in the area of well-being. These areas are embedded in the well-being framework for practice. It is my aim that by 2023 all schools and centres for education will have embedded this dynamic school self-evaluation process focusing on well-being promotion.

The implementation of this well-being promotion process is an ongoing process that will ensure the necessary focus of supporting children and young people in having a sense of purpose and fulfilment, and the skills necessary to deal with life's challenges. Schools will be supported in this work by a comprehensive national professional development programme, currently being developed and trialled, for which a full national roll-out will commence in 2019 and run to 2023. This will include facilitating the engagement of schools in the school evaluation for well-being promotion process which will build professional capacity. The implementation plan for this policy also sets goals to promote the well-being of teachers and to address the learning needs of current and future teachers in relation to well-being promotion. Work is underway to map the range of existing supports that schools can already access through the Professional Development Service for Teachers, PDST, health and well-being team, the junior cycle for teachers and NEPS, with a view to ensuring that there is a comprehensive and easily-accessible set of resources to address school-identified wellbeing promotion needs. There is also a plan to develop a research-based framework for the evaluation of well-being promotion in schools. A well-being policy implementation group is in place which will co-ordinate activity with other Departments. This group will link with the pathfinder project structures when progressed. The Department collaborates in the implementation of Healthy Ireland for 2013 to 2025, the Connecting for Life strategy for 2015 to 2020 and Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures for 2014 to 2020.

The well-being policy statement and framework for practice has incorporated some of the key recommendations of this committee's report on positive mental health in schools and I thank committee members for the important work they have undertaken in this area. Key recommendations in relation to the whole-school approach, the importance of listening and of feeling a sense of belonging and connection to school are highlighted as areas to target in school well-being promotion. The implementation plan recognises the need and plans to provide for additional teacher training and the development of more resources for schools. The needs of children and young people with well-being vulnerabilities are also recognised and actions that require co-operation between the Department of Education and Skills and other Departments and agencies, including the HSE and Tusla, are included in the implementation plan. Deputy Thomas Byrne raised the issue of nurses, as he did in the committee, and I would be interested in pursuing that too. My Department will continue to work closely with other Departments and stakeholders to ensure that an aligned approach and continuum of services is provided to promote the positive mental health and well-being of all of our children and young people.

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