Carol Nolan (Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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235. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if any guidelines, direction or other form of communication has ever been issued by his Department or the National Educational Psychology Service to teachers, school principals or school management advising schools of the number of students that may be referred to the National Educational Psychology Service or the scheme for the commissioning of private psychological assessments for assessment of educational needs per school per year; if limitations currently exist on the number of children that may be referred for assessment per school per year; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [20630/16]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy will be aware that my Department's National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS) 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.

By way of clarification the SCPA was created in 2001 as a temporary measure to provide service to schools (assessment only) in advance of full provision of NEPS personnel and where a NEPS psychologist was not available to provide the full service. Schools availing of SCPA contracted individual assessment from a panel of private practitioners organised and paid for by NEPS.

Historically service was provided on an either/or basis (i.e. either NEPS assigned Psychologist or SCPA).

Schools catered for, at this stage, by allowing access to the SCPA were advised of the limit of such access which was set at 2% of school enrolment (i.e. 1 assessment per 50 pupils enrolled).

This limit was set, the Deputy will understand, to allow management by NEPS of the overall process and it was open to school to raise the necessity of additional assessments with their local NEPS office where urgent need dictated.

From the start of the 2013/14 academic year and based on a staffing complement of 173 w.t.e., NEPS assigned a psychologist to all mainstream schools in order to provide the full advisory & support service. This has meant that NEPS psychologists have taken on additional schools and pupil numbers which is supported by the use of SCPA where the psychologist deems appropriate.

I can inform the Deputy that the NEPS model of service, in line with best international practice for educational psychology services, is a needs-based as opposed to a diagnosis-led model. The needs of children and adolescents in schools present on a continuum from mild to severe and transient to enduring. The NEPS model of service is a tiered one that focuses on addressing this

continuum of need. At one level, NEPS psychologists seeks to build the capacity of schools (at a systemic level) to support all pupils on this continuum of need, by promoting the use of universal preventative and early intervention approaches. At another level NEPS psychologists consult with teachers to build their capacity to identify the emerging need of some pupils

and put in place appropriate, workable interventions to address those needs.

At a final level, NEPS psychologists work directly with pupils with greatest need, and through assessment, consultation and review inform individualised interventions to address those needs. This system allows psychologists to give early attention to urgent cases and also to help many more children indirectly than could be seen individually.

NEPS psychologists conduct planning meetings with schools, at least annually, whereby work within the school is structured and prioritised by means of a dynamic collaborative process of planning and review. Work agreed extends not only to assessment bur also to consultation, advice, on-going complex casework and training.

There are, of course, physical limits to the amount of time which the NEPS psychologist provides to their assigned schools in any given year but the NEPS model of service is oriented at structuring responses to the various levels of need presenting and at supporting appropriate individualised intervention by all players with the highest level of input directed at those with the greatest need.

My Department, over the course of recent economic difficulties, has not only maintained psychologist staffing levels within NEPS, but has increased them by some 10% since late 2008, to 165 whole time equivalent psychologists currently employed. While the numbers of psychologists have steadily increased over the past ten years despite expenditure constraints, the numbers of pupils enrolled in school has also grown rapidly. Currently processes are in train to continue to raise this number to some 173 whole-time equivalents.

The Programme for a Partnership Government commits that we will invest additional resources in the National Educational Psychological Service to ensure earlier intervention and access for young children and teenagers and to offer immediate support to schools in cases of critical incidents. The Programme commits to bring the total number of NEPS psychologists to 238 from

the current sanctioned limit of 173.