Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

138. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he will carry out a review of the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service, CAMHS, in order to ensure that there is support in place if a child's needs cannot be met in school. [42898/17]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) which is the responsibility of the Health Service Executive (HSE), is a service that provides assessment and treatment for young people who are experiencing mental health difficulties.

Inpatient psychiatric treatment is usually provided in CAMHS for children and adolescents up to the age of 18 with severe psychiatric disorders. Admittance to CAMHS is a short term intervention for a number of weeks or months.  CAMHS units also treat day patients, who may attend CAMHS units on a daily basis for a period of time.

The aim of admission of a child/young adult to a CAMHS adolescent inpatient unit is to provide accurate assessment of those with the most severe disorders, implement specific and audited treatment programmes, and to achieve the earliest possible discharge of the young person back to their family and ongoing care of the Community team.

Educational support is provided by my Department to young people while in-patient in a number of CAMHS units, who then return to the school in which they are already enrolled following discharge from CAMHS.

Educational provision at a hospital or medical facility, including CAMHS Units, is a short term intervention designed to provide for some continuity of education during the young person's stay. CAMHs units do not have fulltime enrolments, but have a transient student population who avail of education, subject to their medical fitness to participate in education, during their stay and for periods of time during the day.

Not all young people attending CAMHS are medically fit to avail of education during all of their stay. For a significant period of their day, or for a time of their stay, will also be spent receiving medical and therapeutic treatments. The situation is therefore not anomalous to that of a special school which has full time enrolments for educational purposes for the entire school day.

Educational provision in CAMHS units was reviewed in 2014 and my Department's policy is to provide teaching provision on the basis of a pupil teacher ratio of 6:1, which is currently provided in special schools and special classes for severe emotional disturbance. In medical facilities which do not have educational provision or where young people attend CAMHS Units as day patients, my Department's Home Tuition Scheme provides for compensatory teaching support to account for time missed from school.

My Department has no plans to further review the education provision provided to CAMHS Units at this time.