Written answers

Thursday, 17 May 2018

Department of Education and Skills

Counselling Services Provision

Photo of Fiona O'LoughlinFiona O'Loughlin (Kildare South, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

86. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the planned investment in mental health counselling at second level; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21735/18]

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

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.

At post-primary level the Well-being in Post Primary Schools Guidelines for Mental Health Promotion and Suicide Prevention (2013)provide 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 appropriate practice. They provide clear information for schools and for agencies supporting schools on how to address issues of social emotional learning and mental health promotion. 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 National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS) Continuum of Support tiered approach.

The processes outlined 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.

The key message of the Guidelines are that Schools play a vital role in providing a protective environment for young people which can promote wellbeing, pupil resilience and counteract risk factors through a whole-school approach.

Where difficulties do arise in relation to pupil mental health it promote the development of structures to promote awareness and recognition of such difficulties and provide the appropriate support including input by the Guidance Counsellor and where necessary and appropriate to support student access, in conjunction with parents to referral pathways within HSE and other mental health services in their local community (e.g., HSE Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services or Clinical / Community Care Psychology).

My Department’s Action Plan for Education 2016-2019 affords particular priority to the support of wellbeing and mental health structures and supports in all schools. These include:

- Publishing a Wellbeing Policy Statement in 2018 and commencing, as resources permit, a national programme to support all schools to implement the national Wellbeing in Post Primary Schools Guidelines for Mental Health Promotion and Suicide Prevention (2013) and Wellbeing in Primary Schools Guidelines for Mental Health Promotion (2015)

- Implementing the new Junior Certificate area of learning entitled Wellbeing

- Extending Pupil Resilience and Teacher Classroom Management Programmes to all DEIS schools

- Increasing the capacity of NEPS by 65 educational psychologists to deliver an enhanced educational psychological service to schools

- Enhancing Guidance Counselling at second level

- Undertaking an assessment of the supports to schools in areas of mental health and wellbeing with a view to providing an enhanced and better integrated service

- Working closely with the Department of Health and others departments on the National Task Force on Youth Mental Health.

The Counselling and Guidance Counselling professions are two separate professions with their own unique roles and set of professional competences. Guidance in schools refers to a range of learning experiences provided in a developmental sequence that assist students to develop self-management skills which will lead to effective choices and decisions about their lives. It encompasses the three separate, but interlinked, areas of personal and social development, educational guidance and career guidance.

Counselling is a key part of the school guidance programme, offered on an individual or group basis as part of a developmental learning process and at moments of personal crisis. Counselling has as its objective the empowerment of students so that they can make decisions, solve problems, address behavioural issues, develop coping strategies and resolve difficulties they may be experiencing. Counselling in schools may include personal counselling, educational counselling, career counselling or combinations of these.

Personal counselling in this regard should be recognised as a direct support to students experiencing mental health difficulties which may in certain circumstances operate as a pre-cursor to or in tandem with clinical or formal therapeutic counselling services provided by outside HSE agencies.

As the Deputy may be aware this Government has restored some 500 guidance posts to post-primary schools previously withdrawn in 2012.

As stated previously the school Guidance Counsellor is an integral part of the wellbeing support structure within post primary schools and therefore the restoration of the 500 posts provide additional support to the student body generally in terms of school guidance plans but also in relation to direct individual counselling support to students in crisis.

Comments

No comments

Log in or join to post a public comment.