Fiona O'Loughlin (Kildare South, Fianna Fail)
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364. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the current and planned investment in mental health counselling at second level; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36480/17]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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My Department promotes a comprehensive and whole of school approach to the promotion of wellbeing and positive mental health. This approach considers the entire school community, as well as focussing on groups and individual young people with identified need. This approach spans the curriculum in schools, whole-school ethos, quality of teaching, learning and assessment, student support, pastoral care, guidance counselling and the provision of professional development for teachers. It also involves accessing other supports such as educational psychology services and the interface with other agencies, both nationally and locally. Additionally, schools engage in a wide range of sport and cultural activities which provide an important opportunity for students to experience success and personal growth. The whole staff shares responsibility for general student wellbeing.

The Well-being in Post Primary Schools Guidelines for Mental Health Promotion and Suicide Prevention (2013) provides a framework for schools to present in an integrated way their existing good practice. The Guidelines promote social and emotional learning, and mental health and direct then to new practices, as appropriate.

The European wide HSE supported Health Promoting School Process (HSP) is also outlined, and the Well-being Guidelines show how the HSP can be introduced to schools to complement existing good practice. The Guidelines outline how schools support young people through early intervention and prevention, modelled on the NEPS Continuum of Support tiered approach.

The Guidelines build on the significant work already taking place in schools, including through the systematic implementation of the Social, Personal and Health Education (SPHE) curriculum, the whole-school guidance plan, the National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS) continuum of support model and the HSE, Health Promoting Schools Process. Information is also provided on how to access support from the Professional Development Service for Teachers’ SPHE Support Service and other external agencies and support services.

More recently, my Department’s Action Plan for Education 2017 promotes wellbeing as one of its key goals. Other actions, in addition to those outlined above, relating to wellbeing and mental health in the primary school sector include:

- Developing an integrated programme of support for all schools to implement the Wellbeing Guidelines and an implementation plan for roll-out of this programme to all post-primary schools.

- Increasing the capacity of NEPS: an enhanced educational psychological service to schools, through the appointment of an additional 10 educational psychologists. The focus of this additional support will be on extending the delivery of training to teachers in DEIS schools.

There will be a suite of Junior Cycle for Teachers (JCT) supports provided to post-primary schools to enable them to implement the new National Council for Curriculum and Assessment’s Wellbeing Guidelines for Junior Cycle which are being introduced from this September for first years. These supports will range from a full day whole staff professional activity event, workshops varying in length from 2 hours to 1 day. The workshops will address the needs of both mainstream and special schools. There will be a dedicated wellbeing section on the JCT website full of resources to assist the implementation of wellbeing within the junior cycle. JCT will liaise closely with National Educational Psychological Service and the Health Service Executive as they develop their involvement in this very sensitive area.

Measures announced by my Department as part of Budget 2016 and 2017 mean that 400 guidance posts, or two thirds of the guidance allocation that was withdrawn in Budget 2012, will be restored to schools from September 2017. All of these 400 posts are allocated separately and transparently on the staffing schedule of posts for schools. The pupil teacher ratio (PTR) will revert to 19:1 with effect from September 2017 with the guidance allocation shown separately on the staffing schedules and will represent 0.4 of the PTR for each school. There is now an obligation on schools to ensure that the hours are used for guidance activities. Principals may decide to allocate more hours to guidance activities than the amount allocated on the schedule; they cannot decide to allocate fewer.

While most of the 400 posts restored over the past two years are likely to be allocated to guidance counsellors, schools may decide, in the context of their guidance plans, to allocate some resources to others who may also play a role in delivering guidance in the schools. However, my Department has made it clear that schools’ guidance plans should include specified time allocation for guidance counsellors to be available for one-to-one guidance counselling and time allocation for the role in supporting the organisation and work of the Student Support Team.

Fiona O'Loughlin (Kildare South, Fianna Fail)
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365. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the current and planned investment in mental health counselling at primary level; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36481/17]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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My Department promotes a comprehensive and whole-school approach in schools to the promotion of wellbeing and positive mental health focusing on the entire school community, as well as groups and individual young people with identified need. This spans the curriculum in schools, whole-school ethos, quality of teaching, learning and assessment, student support and pastoral care, guidance counselling and the provision of professional development for teachers. It also involves accessing other supports such as educational psychology services. Additionally, schools engage in a wide range of sport and cultural activities which provide an important opportunity for students to experience success and personal growth. The whole staff shares responsibility for general student wellbeing.

The Well-being in Primary Schools Guidelines for Mental Health Promotion (2015) provides a Framework for schools to present in an integrated way the existing elements of good practice to promote social and emotional learning, and mental health and direct then to new practices as appropriate. They provide clear information for schools and for agencies supporting schools on how to address issues of social emotional learning. The European wide HSE supported, Health Promoting School Process (HSP) is also outlined, and the Well-being Guidelines show how the HSP can be introduced to schools to complement existing good practice. The Guidelines outline how schools support young people through early intervention and prevention, modelled on the NEPS Continuum of Support tiered approach.

The Guidelines build on the significant work already taking place in schools, including through the systematic implementation of the Social, Personal and Health Education (SPHE) curriculum, the whole-school guidance plan, the National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS) continuum of support model and the HSE, Health Promoting Schools Process. Information is also provided on how to access support from the SPHE Support Service and other external agencies and support services.

My Department’s Action Plan for Education 2017 promotes wellbeing as one of its key goals. The actions relating to wellbeing and mental health in the primary school sector include:

- Develop an integrated programme of support for all schools to implement the Wellbeing Guidelines and an implementation plan for roll-out of this programme to all primary schools.

- Increasing the capacity of NEPS: an enhanced educational psychological service to schools, through the appointment of an additional 10 educational psychologists. The focus of this additional support will be on extending the delivery of training to teachers in DEIS schools in two specific evidence-informed programmes - the Incredible Years Teacher Programme and the Friends programmes - the Friends programme, when delivered by trained teachers, reduces anxiety and promotes coping, resilience and school-connectedness in children and young people in the primary and post-primary schools, while the Incredible Years Teacher programme strengthens the social and emotional competence of primary school children whose teacher has completed the programme.