Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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304. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if all front-line staff, including but not exclusive of primary, secondary and third level education staff, receive suicide prevention training; if suicide prevention training is mandatory for front-line staff under the aegis of his Department; and if not, if he will make such training mandatory with the provision of a refresher online course available to staff to be completed every three years thereafter. [45655/17]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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My Department is strongly supportive of the promotion of positive mental health awareness in schools. The Department adopts a holistic and integrated approach to supporting the work of schools in promoting positive mental health and to supporting those with a broad range of problems, behavioural emotional and social.

The processes span the curriculum in schools, whole-school ethos, quality of teaching, learning and assessment, student support and pastoral care and the provision of professional development for teachers. It also involves other supports such as educational psychological services and guidance and counselling services, and the interface with other agencies, both nationally and locally. Schools also engage in a wide range of sport and cultural co-curricular activities which provide an important opportunity for students to experience success and personal growth. One of the objectives of initial teacher education and CPD programmes is to provide teachers with an understanding of child development and wellbeing.

Wellbeing Guidelines for Post-Primary (2013) and Primary Schools (2015) have been developed by my Department in collaboration with the Department of Health and the Health Service Executive. The guidelines are informed by consultation with key Education and Health partners and by the findings of research. They provide practical guidance to schools on how they can promote mental health and wellbeing in an integrated school-wide way and they also provide evidence-based advice on how to support young people who may be at risk of suicidal behaviour.

My Department in collaboration with the National Office for Suicide Prevention (NOSP) has recently commenced a pilot programme of training in SafeTALK (suicide awareness skills) on a voluntary basis for teachers.  The Learning from this pilot phase will help determine the appropriate training needs for teachers at primary and post primary level.

NOSP provides training courses in Safe Talk, ASIST and ASIST Tune Up which can be accessed by any professionals including third level staff.