Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Thomas Byrne for tabling this motion and I thank the Deputies who have spoken from the heart very much. I will preface my remarks by saying that I have 31 years' experience as a primary school teacher and principal. It is a tragedy that any child should be homeless and that any children going to school should have the burden of not having a safe roof over their heads. I want to thank a particular group of people - the battalion of teachers and school communities right across the country that help these children. These children are traumatised. Deputies have used all of the words of which I could think. They are burdened and upset. They do not have security and stability. They are not coming from a secure home and do not know that they can go home in the evening and enjoy a roof over their heads. I hear exactly what the Deputies are saying. I have been taking notes since I entered the Chamber and I will bring back these points to the Department of Education and Skills. Work is being carried out in the Department to support the teachers and children. I take the point that more needs to be done. We need more houses and we need to get roofs over these people's heads or we will be here again in the future talking about other children who are homeless.

To my very core, I believe that children's education is transformative and that nothing should interrupt it. Deputy Michael Healy-Rae mentioned that I had visited Ardfert national school. It was such a beautiful environment. The children were happy and confident in themselves. They were able to sing and they were delighted with their world, including their school world. They were able to compete for a Digital School of Distinction award. I would say that most of them had none of the worries of the children about whom we are talking today.

The education system is for every child regardless of background, economic status or, as in this case, living conditions. A child's right to attend school is enshrined in the Constitution.

The Government recognises the importance of an inclusive and all-embracing education situation. Never is it more important than in the case of children experiencing homelessness or living in emergency accommodation. School is their constant, their stable environment, the place where they learn the skills to cope with their situations, progress educationally, meet friends and be just children. The Department of Education and Skills and the Government as a whole fully recognise the barriers facing children from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds, including those experiencing homelessness. We have put in place various targeted measures to assist families and children in such circumstances. The Department provides DEIS schools with a suite of resources to support the inclusion of disadvantaged children in the education system. These include additional teaching posts, additional and enhanced funding, NEPS, support and priority access to continual professional development and the Centre for School Leadership.

I note the points made about collection of data and the fact that not all homeless children will attend DEIS schools. Collection of data in the Department is done via the primary online database, POD, and post-primary online database, P-POD, systems. Collection of data at school level is complicated, since not all children or parents will want to be identified within the school system as being homeless. The key issue is that, where a child is experiencing challenges that impact on his or her education, the school is in a position to access educational supports via NEPS and other resources available to the school. Where additional supports are required outside of the school system and are provided by other Departments and agencies, consideration will be given to how best to provide information to schools to assist in accessing those supports for children.

The identification of need, early intervention and prevention strategies are considered key components in supporting children who experience homelessness. NEPS works with schools through the Department's continuum of support framework. The NEPS model of service works through a problem-solving and solution-oriented consultative approach to supporting schools in meeting the needs of individual pupils. NEPS has played a central role in the development of the Department's well-being policy statement and the framework for practice, which was published last year, and it will be leading the implementation of this policy within schools over the next five years. The initiatives planned will provide schools with a framework for developing and promoting the well-being of all children and young people. In addition, NEPS psychologists support schools in implementing early intervention and prevention programmes such as the incredible years programme in primary schools and resilience building programmes, for example, the Friends programmes at primary and post-primary levels.

Students facing homelessness may have the same emotional and learning needs as other students, but the immediacy of those needs is heightened. NEPS supports the role of the school in identifying individual needs and, at a systems level, in the development of a culture and environment that supports connectedness and provides structure and stability, key elements that underpin learning and opportunity.

All schools will receive a 5% increase in capitation from September next. Over the course of the 2019-2020 school year, an additional €10 million will be allocated to primary and post-primary schools, of which €4 million will be allocated in 2019. This increase is the beginning of the process for the restoration of capitation, which is one of the actions included in the Action Plan for Education 2019.

For DEIS schools, the home-school community liaison, HSCL, scheme and the school completion programme, SCP, are core elements of the local strategy to support school attendance, participation and retention. HSCL co-ordinators engage with parents when they become aware of concerns raised by either the school or parents. Where appropriate, and if consented to by parents, referrals are made to the SCP and children then have access to before, during and after-school supports as well as holiday programmes provided by the SCP.

Eligible families can avail of the back to school clothing and footwear allowance from the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection to assist with the costs associated with returning to school each September. Conscious of the cost to families, the previous Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Bruton, provided in a circular issued to all schools in 2017 for measures to be adopted by schools to reduce the cost of school uniforms and other costs.

For children experiencing homelessness, school attendance can often be an issue for a variety of reasons. Tusla's educational welfare services are aware of the challenges faced by families experiencing homelessness. They work with schools to put supports in place to assist these families with issues that affect them in school. Tusla seeks to maximise attendance, participation and retention rates in school to try to ensure that the education placement does not break down and the protective factors of maintaining school engagement are capitalised on.

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