Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for the opportunity to answer the question she has raised. A key objective of my Department is to ensure early learning and care provision promotes the participation of all children. To that end, the Department has taken steps to integrate additional supports and services for children and families with additional needs. The access and inclusion model, AIM, which was introduced in 2016, provides a suite of supports to ensure children with a disability can meaningfully participate in, and reap the benefits of, the early childhood care and education, ECCE, programme.

AIM provides both targeted and universal supports. The latter are designed to create a more inclusive culture in early learning and care settings through the provision of training courses and qualifications for staff. The targeted supports can include, depending on children's individual needs, specialist equipment and funding for extra staff or reduced ratios. The application process for these supports is very simple and is not dependent on a diagnosis or anything like that. Parents are advised to speak to their provider, which will make an application for targeted supports in collaboration with the parents. The provider will submit the application on the parents' behalf to Better Start, which is the body responsible for the administration of AIM. In line with emerging best practice to support the integration and independence of children with a disability, we do not call the workers involved "SNAs" in this context. Instead, they are called AIM level 7 workers. They can be deployed to reduce the ratio within a setting or provide direct support to individual children within a setting. They must have the same qualifications as other childcare workers in that particular setting, namely, a minimum of a level 5 qualification in childcare. AIM has been extremely successful in supporting thousands of children to access the ECCE programme. Currently, there are more than 7,200 children receiving targeted supports within AIM.

The restriction under AIM is that it is designed for the two years of care provided under the ECCE programme. As I said, it is working very well. First 5, the Government's strategy for children under five, has committed to extending AIM further. It is a model that works. I am looking, in next year's budget and future budgets, to grow AIM and allow it to apply to wider cohorts of children. I hope we can expand it to after-school care provision. It is resource-dependent. Allowing more children to access it, whether by way of enhanced hours after their ECCE hours are over or via access to the wider national childcare scheme, NCS, and after-school provision, is a key objective of my Department. AIM has been proven to offer the right set of supports to deliver the ECCE provision. I am looking to grow it but it will take a number of budgetary cycles before children of all age groups, across both early years and after-school provision, have full access to AIM.

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