Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to address the Seanad on this issue.

In February of this year I announced the establishment within the National Council for Special Education of a new inclusion support service to assist schools in supporting children with special educational needs. This service will include the special education support service which provides training for schools in how to assist pupils with special educational needs, the national behaviour support service, which provides guidance and support to schools in dealing with behavioural issues; and the visiting teacher service for children who are deaf or hard of hearing and for children who are blind or visually impaired. Until now these support services have been managed separately within my Department. The new inclusion support service will bring these services together and they will be integrated within the National Council for Special Education, NCSE.

The decision to establish an inclusion support service within the NCSE has been taken in light of recommendations contained in the NCSE working group report on a proposed new model for allocating teaching resources for pupils with special educational needs. This report noted that the existing advisory and intervention supports which are currently available to schools are provided by a number of different bodies and organisations. The report also highlighted the need to ensure cohesion across service provision and recommended that the existing support services for students with special educational needs should be combined into one unified support service for schools. The NCSE working group therefore recommended that a national inclusion support service for schools should be established under the management of the NCSE in order to provide a coherent service for schools.

The development of this new inclusion support service within the NCSE will mean that schools will receive better and more integrated support in the future. It will build on the existing good work and supports which the national behaviour support service, the special education support service and visiting teacher service for visual and hearing impairment currently provided to children and their families as well as to teachers and schools.

The role of the new inclusion support service will be to provide advice and support to schools on the education and inclusion of students with special educational needs. It will provide in-school support for support teachers, continuing professional development for teachers, and support to schools on the management of challenging behaviour. It will promote educational programmes for schools and provide additional training for schools, where necessary. It will also enhance the multi-disciplinary capacity of the education system through providing access to expert knowledge in areas such as speech and language, deafness or hard of hearing or visual impairment.

The working group also recommended that the inclusion support service should be used to provide immediate assistance to schools in unplanned and exceptional circumstances, where this is indicated, and as needs emerge within the school. The service will have a close relationship with NCSE special educational needs organisers who will be able to indicate where supports are most needed for schools. The service is therefore anticipated to be able to provide targeted interventions or assistance to schools, where necessary, and to upskill and support schools in providing for pupils with special educational needs.

Work is ongoing to transfer the existing services to the NCSE. The NCSE has established three working groups in conjunction with the existing management bodies for the three services, the special education support service, the national behaviour support service and the visiting teacher services. The working groups are meeting regularly to identify all of the requirements which will be required to be put in place to support the transfer of the services to the NCSE under the inclusion support service. It is intended that the inclusion support service will be operational from the coming school year. It is also intended that the existing services will continue as normal as the new arrangements are put in place, with as little disruption as possible to service-users, as progress is made to transfer these existing services to the NCSE.

I also recently asked my Department to review the roles, structures and optimal working arrangements for co-ordination between the expanded NCSE with its inclusion support service and the National Educational Psychological Service.To this end, submissions were sought from interested stakeholders on what they considered the optimal working arrangements between the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, and National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS, should be, at a national and local level, in order to deliver the best service for students and schools. A total of 43 submissions have been received to date from disability groups, parents, management bodies and representative organisations. These submissions will be considered carefully as we continue to develop the inclusion support service and plan to develop the most co-ordinated support services that we can provide for schools.

That is a general overview of what we are providing. In terms of the context of that, a new model has been proposed by the NCSE for children with special needs generally. In terms of the process of developing the arrangements for that model, we are not ready to introduce it in the coming school year but we are working on it, including with the Health Service Executive, which is doing some work on complex needs. In the meantime we are setting up this support service which we believe will make it easier for schools in general. There is a general issue to do with being properly co-ordinated in all these services and not having them located in different places to make it easier for the young people concerned but also for school management, teachers and parents. It is working in tangent with the work of the NCSE and the ongoing work in regard to the new model. I would be happy to hear the views of Senators and welcome their suggestions.