Maureen O'Sullivan (Dublin Central, Independent)
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38. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills his views on linking community and youth services in with schools in the local area in relation to awareness programmes dealing with the dangers of addiction to drugs, alcohol and gambling. [1814/17]

Maureen O'Sullivan (Dublin Central, Independent)
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My question relates to the programmes being run by community organisations and the youth service to raise awareness of addiction to drugs, alcohol and gambling. Is there a role for linking those programmes to schools in local areas?

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The well-being in post-primary schools guidelines for mental health promotion and suicide prevention 2013, and the well-being in primary schools guidelines for mental health promotion 2015, acknowledge that schools have a role to play in supporting their students to develop the key skills and knowledge to enable them to make informed choices when faced with a range of difficult issues, including drugs, alcohol and gambling. This is mainly done through the social personal and health education, SPHE, programme, which has a specific module on the use and misuse of a range of substances. SPHE is currently mandatory in all primary schools and in junior cycle. It will also form part of the new mandatory well-being area of learning for the new junior cycle. Schools are also encouraged to deliver the SPHE programme in senior cycle.

Relevant topics in SPHE include student decision-making skills and safety and protection. Students learn how to exercise judgment, weigh up different possibilities, examine the steps and choices that guide them towards considered decision-making, begin to understand their own rights and the rights of others, and explore decision-making. In respect of safety, students’ ability to assess the consequences of risky behaviour is developed.

Current best practice guidelines for the delivery of SPHE indicate that the classroom teacher is the best placed professional to work sensitively and consistently with students and that individual themes such as substance misuse prevention should not be treated in isolation but should be integrated with the other SPHE modules. However, I recognise the value of strong links with the local community in the context of a whole-school approach to SPHE.

I have recently established a cross-divisional working group on well-being within my Department and linkages with local community and youth services will be considered as part of the work of the group.

Maureen O'Sullivan (Dublin Central, Independent)
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The Minister gave me the theory and no one would disagree with that. As somebody who was in a voluntary secondary school and was involved in, and fully committed to, SPHE I know what he is talking about. It is, however, very much hit and miss. I chair a prevention and education subgroup for the drugs task force in the north inner city and we had a roundtable discussion recently with health workers, youth workers and community workers who are involved in such programmes with young people through Youthreach or in the local schools. I came away from the meeting feeling optimistic and hopeful because of the way they were reaching out to the people who needed to be reached out to. They gave accurate information about all the things of which the Minister spoke and they looked at risk factors, competences and skills young people need for those types of addictions. We know that young people will experiment and some of them will stay in drug-taking and the abuse and misuse of alcohol. We have also seen an increase in gambling addiction. It is very hit and miss in schools whereas, at the other end of the scale, with community and youth programmes we would move forward in a better way.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy's point is well made, in that not every school is equally good at implementing these programmes. However, the junior certificate well-being programme, which we are rolling out from September, gives an opportunity for schools to have a hard look at themselves, a self-evaluation. We are encouraging schools to do that and there is a seven-step process to look at their programmes, examining such things as whether they have done the continuous professional development for the teachers who will front up these programmes. They will need to consider whether they have good links with others who can support them.

I recognise that there is a range of expertise outside the school that should be drawn upon. Clearly, however, such expertise must be of sufficient quality. Teachers must have confidence that whoever they are taking on will deliver a quality programme. It is an issue for schools to ensure that any assistance they take in from the outside is of a high standard. We hope we will be able to give them guidelines to help them make those choices, but they are ultimately choices for the school to make. We must also be conscious that teacher-led is the model we are told is best. It is not a substitute for the teacher, but the teacher ought to be at the heart of the programme. That model is based on experience and we should seek to upskill the teacher and the school to lead this programme effectively.

Maureen O'Sullivan (Dublin Central, Independent)
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I cannot agree with the Minister that the teacher is best placed to lead this particular programme because it is too hit and miss. I totally support the SPHE and Wellbeing classes, but they will go quickest when one of the academic subjects needs an extra class. If there is something else going on in the school that will be the class that will suffer. It is not consistent and that is where the problem lies.

I do not like the term "prevention" in education. The term "intervention" would be much better. The whole area is very difficult, however, because what turns one young person onto drugs could be the thing that turns another person off.

We also have a serious issue with the misuse and abuse of alcohol. We had a discussion with the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Zappone, this morning about the young people's facilities and services fund, which was targeting those most at risk of this kind of behaviour. We also discussed the need for constant monitoring which is where it is falling down. I agree that it needs a holistic approach. It cannot just be about giving information. It is about a whole change in lifestyle, but it is also about equipping young people to make informed decisions. I was a teacher and I am very supportive of the programme but we must also examine other models.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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At the end of last week I had a workshop in Galway and detected that in schools there is a huge appetite for this programme. School authorities recognise that this is an area in which they need to improve. A lot of pressures are coming on schools with expectations from pupils who are experiencing difficulties and they must respond.

We have developed some excellent tools to support them, including self-evaluation, guidance, continuous professional development and upskilling. The challenge is to roll that out and see that capability is built upon. To that end, we are restoring counselling and some 400 posts have already been committed to for guidance counselling in schools. We are also committed to increasing NEPS, the National Educational Psychological Service, by 25%. We are therefore trying to grow the resource that will help schools to undertake self-evaluation as well as providing techniques and tools that have been developed.

I share the Deputy's view that this is a very important area to work upon. From my experience, there is a huge appetite in schools to make this work. I see the Wellbeing programme at junior cycle in particular as an opportunity to put down some clear self-evaluation markers and improvement processes within the schools in order to deliver this programme to the highest quality.