Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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227. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs if a matter (details supplied) regarding the AIM scheme will be addressed; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [17011/18]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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The Access and Inclusion Model (AIM) is a programme of supports to enable children with a disability to access and fully participate in the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme. It was introduced in June 2016 and is administered by Pobal on behalf of my Department. AIM is a child-centred model, involving seven levels of progressive support, moving from the universal to the targeted, based on the needs of the child and the pre-school setting.

Level 7 of AIM provides additional assistance in the pre-school room where this is critical to ensuring a child’s participation in the ECCE Programme. In line with emerging best practice to support the integration and independence of children with a disability, AIM does not fund Special Needs Assistants (SNAs). Rather, it provides financial support to the pre-school provider, which can be used either to reduce the adult to child ratio in the pre-school room by reducing the number of children in the room or to buy in additional assistance to the pre-school room. The latter is generally managed through a recruitment process if the pre-school does not have access to a staff member to fulfil this role as is the case for most smaller pre-schools. Services who intend to use AIM Level 7 support to recruit an additional person for the pre-school room, or increase hours for existing staff, must ensure that such staff hold at least a major award in early childhood care and education at Level 5 on the National Framework of Qualifications or a qualification deemed to be equivalent. The is in line with Child Care Act 1991 (Early Years Services) Regulations 2016 and recognises early years care and education as a specialised area within education.

These Regulations were amended to allow for an exemption to these qualification requirements for an employee of a registered pre-school provider receiving AIM Level 7 support where it has been deemed that specialised health support is required. In limited circumstances, an exemption may be granted by Pobal where it is considered that such specialist support is required and is critical to the child's meaningful participation in the ECCE programme. Such exemptions will primarily be for children with medically complex needs. The pre-school provider would need to request an exemption during the appraisal process, or once funding has been approved prior to recruitment.

Neither Pobal nor my Department has a direct role in the recruitment of staff for pre-schools which are operated by either private or not for profit entities. While Pobal has noted a time lag for the draw down of some approved AIM Level 7 support, there are several reasons why a pre-school provider may not yet have received a Level 7 payment following approval of such support. For example, the pre-school may need to return or correct the necessary paperwork, the child’s registration on the IT system used to administer Early Years funding may need to be amended, or the pre-school may be experiencing difficulty in recruiting staff. In the normal course of events, the recruitment process can take several weeks as the pre-school will have to advertise, review applications, interview candidates, carry out Garda vetting and agree a start date with the successful candidate.

Pobal has received feedback from 10 providers who reported some difficulty in implementing Level 7 support. This included issues around recruiting staff with the minimum qualification, difficulty in recruiting staff to work part-time hours and concerns around staff shortages in the wider pre-school sector. An End of Year One Review of AIM is currently underway which will include an online survey of a representative sample of pre-school practitioners. This may yield further information about recruitment under AIM Level 7.

Overall, in its first year, AIM provided 2,486 children with 4,760 varying degrees of support to ensure that they could fully participate in the ECCE programme. In the second year of AIM from September 2017 to date, AIM provided 3,795 children with 5,900 varying degrees of support to ensure that they could fully participate in the ECCE programme.

Where the 2017/2018 ECCE programme year is concerned, the following applications have been approved to date:

2,602 applications approved for Level 4 (Expert Early Years Educational Advice and Support)

Under Level 5 (Equipment and Minor Alterations), 255 applications for equipment have been approved and 34 applications for minor alterations have been approved.

Under Level 7 (Additional Assistance in the Pre-school Room), 2,196 new applications have been approved to date as well as 633 applications which rolled over from the 2016/2017 ECCE programme year.

The report of the End of Year One Review of AIM is expected in Quarter 2 of 2018.

With regard to recruitment and retention of staff in Early Years services, I am very much aware of the difficulties currently being experienced. It is clear that a major issue impacting on attrition and retention rates is the poor terms and conditions of the workforce. These relate to both pay and part time / part year contracts.

My Department and the Department of Education and Skills have committed to delivering a new workforce plan for the Early Years sector in 2018. To support this work, the Expert Group on Future Skills Needs commissioned a skills forecasting model from Prospectus Consulting which will allow detailed analysis of skills needs for the sector at a national and regional level. The model is currently being finalised and will feed into the second phase of the work. The aim of the workforce plan is to examine the impact of a rapidly changing policy and practice landscape in the childcare sector in Ireland on future skills requirements so that Government can ensure that a high quality workforce is in place over the next decade. The ten year Early Years Strategy which I hope to publish later this year will also focus on how this issue can be addressed.

Additional investment is required to address the pay and conditions issue. I have regularly spoken about the need to continue to invest both in the quality and affordability of childcare in this country, building on the 80% increase in investment Government has made over the last three budgets. Many efforts have already been made to begin to improve conditions. For example, from September 2018 capitation rates to childcare providers for the provision of the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme will increase by 7%. The increase in capitation is targeted at increasing the quality of care and education provided through ECCE, and in particular, supporting the recruitment and retention of high quality staff.