Maureen O'Sullivan (Dublin Central, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

513. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of primary level and secondary level students in Dublin north-east and Dublin north-west inner city seeking special needs assessments by school in tabular form, and the number of these assessments completed and the allocation of resources as a result of submitted needs assessments by school. [43920/15]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The Deputy will be aware that additional resources are provided to pupils /students with particular special educational needs based on the submission of supporting documentation and assessment reports from a number of sources. These include assessment reports not only from staff from my Department's National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS) but also from a range of professional staff within the HSE (Clinical Psychologists, Occupational / Speech Therapists, Psychiatrists, etc) and their private sector counterparts. Application for resources in support of individual pupils are submitted by school authorities to the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) using the assessment reports furnished by the forgoing agencies as support the application.

My Department's NEPS service provides educational psychology service to all primary and post primary schools through an assigned NEPS psychologist and in some cases through the Scheme for Commissioning Psychological Assessments (SCPA). Under this scheme schools can have an assessment carried out by a member of the panel of private psychologists approved by NEPS, and NEPS will pay the psychologist the fees for this assessment directly.

NEPS does not keep waiting lists for assessments of children but in common with many other psychological services and best international practice, NEPS has adopted a consultative model of service. The focus is on empowering teachers to intervene effectively with pupils whose needs range from mild to severe and transient to enduring. Psychologists use a problem solving and solution oriented consultative approach to maximise positive outcomes for these pupils. NEPS encourages schools to use a continuum based assessment and intervention process whereby each school takes responsibility for initial assessment, educational planning and remedial intervention for pupils with learning, emotional or behavioural difficulties.

Teachers may consult their NEPS psychologist should they need to at this stage in the process. Only in the event of a failure to make reasonable progress, in spite of the school's best efforts in consultation with NEPS, will the psychologist become involved with an individual child for intensive intervention. This system allows psychologists to give early attention to urgent cases and also to help many more children indirectly than could be seen individually. It also ensures that children are not referred unnecessarily for psychological assessment and/or intervention. When a NEPS psychologist becomes involved with an individual pupil it is for the purposes of identifying that pupil's special educational needs and the appropriate interventions to be put in place to meet those needs. These interventions commonly have relevance to the work of the existing class teacher, learning support staff, the provision of advice on alternative placement, as well as the provision of additional Resource Teaching or SNA support.While NEPS maintains a client database of its involvement with individual students this structure was developed to track the history of NEPS involvement with the student during the course of their school careers, it was not designed to record their eligibility for additional resources. Individual school authorities are responsible for and retain records of the range of applications to NCSE for such additional resources.

The National Council for Special Education (NCSE) is responsible, through its network of local Special Educational Needs Organisers (SENOs) for allocating Resource Teaching Support and Special Needs Assistants (SNAs) to schools to support children with special educational needs.

The NCSE has published details of all of the allocations which have been made to primary and post primary schools for the 2015/16 school year, including schools in Dublin North East Inner City and Dublin North West Inner City, on its website www.ncse.ie.