Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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1091. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs if all frontline staff including but not exclusive to Tusla receive suicide prevention training, if suicide prevention training is mandatory for front line staff under the aegis of her Department; and if not, her plans to make such training mandatory with the provision of a refresher online course available to staff to be completed every three years thereafter. [45656/17]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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While the provision of suicide prevention training to all frontline staff for the four agencies within my remit is an operational matter, I wish to inform the Deputy that I am advised by the agencies as follows:

- A number of staff in the Adoption Authority of Ireland have participated in suicide prevention training. The Authority supported their attendance and will continue to support other staff members who may wish to avail of such training. The training is not mandatory for staff of the Authority.

- To address suicide or self-harm behaviour in young people in Oberstown Children Detention Campus, training of 6 in house facilitators has commenced to roll out Suicide Prevention and Self-Harm mitigation training for all front line staff. The training selected is STORM (Skills based Training On Risk Management) a model which utilises skills-based techniques to build a skill-set for suicide risk assessment and safety planning. I am informed that this training will be provided to all frontline staff in 2018 and it will be mandatory. It is also envisaged that all staff will receive 3 year refresher training.

- While suicide prevention training is not currently mandatory for frontline staff in Tusla, it is prioritised by managers. All staff in Tusla have access to training in SafeTalk and ASSIST through the HSE regional resource officers for suicide prevention (National Office for Suicide Prevention Programme - NOSP). The NOSP online programme esuicideTALK is also available to Tusla staff. Working with NOSP, Tusla Workforce Learning and Development is developing internal capacity for delivery of SafeTalk and ASSIST.

The Office of the Ombudsman for Children is independent in its function and reports to the Oireachtas on matters within its remit, as required by the Ombudsman for Children Act 2002. I have forwarded the question to the Office of the Ombudsman for Children and asked that they might correspond with you directly in this matter.