Results 3,581-3,600 of 6,653 for speaker:Rose Conway-Walsh

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Mental Health Supports in Schools and Tertiary Education: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Nov 2022)

Rose Conway-Walsh: I thank the witnesses for their submissions. This is a topic we have discussed many times. Anybody who has had a child, sibling or friend who has experienced bullying, particularly sustained bullying over time, will have no doubt about the link between bullying and student mental health problems. Dr. O'Reilly highlighted the fact that there are no specific guidelines for schools and...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Mental Health Supports in Schools and Tertiary Education: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Nov 2022)

Rose Conway-Walsh: Does DCU work with the Middletown Centre for Autism in Armagh? I visited the centre some years ago after the Good Friday Agreement and thought some of the work done - obviously in the context of autism - there was very impressive.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Mental Health Supports in Schools and Tertiary Education: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Nov 2022)

Rose Conway-Walsh: It is very important that we do so. One speaker referred to 26 years of research. This is the thing about which I despair the most. Dr. O'Reilly described matters in terms of a whole school and whole community approach. I was involved with Trinity College's anti-bullying centre with Dr. Stephen Minton 15 or 16 years ago. I will separate issues relating to autism because I am not familiar...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Mental Health Supports in Schools and Tertiary Education: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Nov 2022)

Rose Conway-Walsh: Dr. Minton's model looked at international best practice and a whole-community approach, such as involvement of GAA and soccer clubs and everybody else within the community. There is an evidence base. This evidence is presented, recommendations are made, they are left at that, someone decides to do another piece of research and two or three decades later, we still do not see the impact....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Mental Health Supports in Schools and Tertiary Education: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Nov 2022)

Rose Conway-Walsh: That is exactly the point. We must also ask how we can scale up the models, the pilot programmes that are being used. I am interested in the EMHP model to which Ms Stockham referred and how it might work. From my experience, I think it could work effectively in Ireland. How is the impact of that model going to be measured as we go along? I will give her an opportunity to explain the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Mental Health Supports in Schools and Tertiary Education: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Nov 2022)

Rose Conway-Walsh: It does. I will talk to Ms Stockham and Professor Downes another time about the partnership model, but one of the biggest barriers we have is that we lack a skilled workforce. We can say this looks like a good model that could work in a community but fall short because we lack those who can implement it, whether they are counsellors or other clinical practitioners. Ms Stockham said the NHS...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Mental Health Supports in Schools and Tertiary Education: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Nov 2022)

Rose Conway-Walsh: -----from people who may have traditionally entered healthcare work. Did the NHS face the same problems we do? Does it not have suitably qualified personnel to implement the model and is the EMHP model the answer? I might ask Professor Downes if the model would work here.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Mental Health Supports in Schools and Tertiary Education: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Nov 2022)

Rose Conway-Walsh: That seems a sensible approach. I have some related questions for Professor Downes and Dr. O'Reilly. Could that system work here? What role would further and higher education play in ensuring we develop that workforce?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Mental Health Supports in Schools and Tertiary Education: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Nov 2022)

Rose Conway-Walsh: Is the professor talking about the multidisciplinary teams in Ireland?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Mental Health Supports in Schools and Tertiary Education: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Nov 2022)

Rose Conway-Walsh: We do not have them here.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Mental Health Supports in Schools and Tertiary Education: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Nov 2022)

Rose Conway-Walsh: This is an interesting topic to tease out. Why do we have such long waiting lists for CAMHS? What we hear from schools it that when children are referred to services, there is a waiting list for them to be seen and the requirement for those children to be seen regularly and consistently is not met. Will the professor respond to the point around how long children have to wait? They also...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Mental Health Supports in Schools and Tertiary Education: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Nov 2022)

Rose Conway-Walsh: Does Professor Downes mean that we need to tweak the system that is already in place and which is failing so many children today? We would all have to agree that many young children are being failed in terms of intervention and prevention at school level.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Mental Health Supports in Schools and Tertiary Education: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Nov 2022)

Rose Conway-Walsh: No, I think we are all clear on that. Getting interventions at an early stage is the key to this, even in terms of resource allocation. We do not then have to have the other interventions as we go along. Organisations such as Jigsaw and Mindspace Mayo certainly serve a purpose in that regard. In terms of being able to really meet the need that is there, however, is Professor Downes saying...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Mental Health Supports in Schools and Tertiary Education: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Nov 2022)

Rose Conway-Walsh: I want to tease that out. The counsellors would actually be in the schools.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Mental Health Supports in Schools and Tertiary Education: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Nov 2022)

Rose Conway-Walsh: That would see each primary school having a counsellor attached to it.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Mental Health Supports in Schools and Tertiary Education: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Nov 2022)

Rose Conway-Walsh: Have costings been done on that?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Mental Health Supports in Schools and Tertiary Education: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Nov 2022)

Rose Conway-Walsh: When Professor Downes says a national pilot, if we had the situation then where there was a counsellor for every two schools, how much would that cost?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Mental Health Supports in Schools and Tertiary Education: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Nov 2022)

Rose Conway-Walsh: I completely think that it is the right way to go. What workforce planning must we do at this point? We do not have enough counsellors to meet the existing need. Have we quantified the number of counsellors we would need anywhere? What would we need to do right at this point to have, say, an intake of fully-trained counsellors next September?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Mental Health Supports in Schools and Tertiary Education: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Nov 2022)

Rose Conway-Walsh: We have enough counsellors as it is at the moment. That is interesting. Professor Downes is saying we haves a sufficient number of counsellors.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Mental Health Supports in Schools and Tertiary Education: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Nov 2022)

Rose Conway-Walsh: I thank Professor Downes for that; I understand. That would contradict the fact that if somebody looks for a counselling service tomorrow in County Mayo, it may take months for that person to get that service. The fact that we have enough counsellors would almost contradict that. I am only trying to join the dots.