Paul McGrath (Westmeath, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Question 265: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the schools in Dublin 15 that have the stay safe programme in place; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [32128/05]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

The issue of child protection and ensuring that all children in every primary school are aware of child protection issues are high priority areas for my Department. The stay safe programme is a personal safety programme for children. It is designed to give children the knowledge and necessary skills to help them deal with potentially abusive or threatening situations. However, it is also recognised that the programme must cover those individuals closely involved with children on a daily basis, including parents, guardians and teachers. To this end, professional in-service courses for teachers and parent awareness seminars have been put in place at individual school level. This is in addition to the teaching of a personal safety skills programme to pupils.

The training of teachers, parents and boards of management in the stay safe programme and the development of guidelines and procedures for a school policy on child protection is provided by a network of 31 regionally-based teachers who are available to the programme on a part-time basis. This support supplements the assistance provided by the Department of Health and Children which maintains an administrative office for the stay safe programme. An initial one-day in-service training seminar on the stay safe programme has been provided for all primary schools. Since the programme was introduced, 99.7% of primary schools have participated in this training. I understand that 87% of schools in the Dublin 15 area have the stay safe programme in place.

Although it should be noted that the stay safe programme is not mandatory, the teaching of the overall issue of child protection is now an integral element of the subject of social, personal and health education, SPHE, which is part of the primary curriculum taught in every school. The introduction of SPHE as a subject on the revised primary school curriculum combined with the implementation of the national child protection guidelines, children first, gave an additional impetus to the stay safe programme. It is a priority of my Department to ensure that a high level of awareness and necessary skills to address child protection issues, which includes the implementation of the stay safe programme, is maintained in all schools. For this reason, my Department will continue to support the promotion of child protection within the context of the social, personal and health education curriculum.