Written answers
Tuesday, 28 February 2023
Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth
Community Development Projects
Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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438. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the total of staff and budget of AIM, divided across the services delivered; and the estimated number of clients reached by each service which was delivered in 2022. [9637/23]
Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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The Access and Inclusion Model (AIM) is a model of supports designed to ensure that children with disabilities can access the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme. Its goal is to empower Early Learning and Care (ELC) providers to deliver an inclusive preschool experience, ensuring that every eligible child can meaningfully participate in the ECCE programme and reap the benefits of quality early years care and education. AIM is a child-centred model, involving seven levels of support, moving from the universal to the targeted, based on the needs of the child and the preschool service. It offers tailored, practical supports based on need and does not require a formal diagnosis of disability.
The main supports are grouped into universal or targeted supports. Universal supports are designed to create a more inclusive culture in Early Learning and Care settings, through training courses and qualifications for staff. Where universal supports are not enough to meet the needs of an individual child, targeted supports are available to ensure the child can meaningfully participate in pre-school. AIM is administered by Pobal and Better Start.
Universal supports (Levels 1-3)
| Level 1 | aims to embed an inclusive culture in services, includes the national inclusion policy and guidelines for ECCE, the funding of the Leadership for Inclusion (LINC) training programme, the establishment of Inclusion Co-Ordinator (INCO) roles in ECCE settings, and a small increase in capitation of €2 per registered ECCE child for services with qualified Inclusion Co-ordinators. |
|---|---|
| Level 2 | involves provision of information for parents and providers on AIM, through the AIM.gov.ie website and information provided by County/City Childcare Committees. |
| Level 3 | recognises the requirement to continue to develop a qualified workforce that can confidently meet the needs of all children participating in the ECCE Programme. Supports include funding of training courses such as Hanen, Lámh and Sensory Processing E-Learning (SPEL). |
Targeted supports (Levels 4-7)
| Level 4 | addresses the needs of early learning and care practitioners to have timely access to advice and support from experts in early learning and care (and disability in particular) to assist them meet each child’s needs. |
|---|---|
| Level 5 | recognises that some children require specialised equipment, appliances, assistive technology and/or that some early learning and care settings may require minor structural alterations to ensure children with a disability can participate in the ECCE programme. Supports include grants for equipment and some minor capital building works. |
| Level 6 | provides access to therapeutic supports where they are critical to enable a child be enrolled, and fully participate, in the ECCE programme. |
| Level 7 | Additional assistance in the pre-school room involves additional capitation for service providers where an application process has demonstrated that supports at Level 1-6 have not, or will not, by themselves, meet the child’s needs. Funding can be used by the provider to buy in additional support, or reduce the staff / child ratio, supporting the pre-school leader to ensure the child’s optimal participation. |
Targeted supports under specific strands are tracked across programme years (i.e Sept-Aug). For 2022/2023 to date, 283 children received equipment under AIM Level 5. The number of Level 7 level 7 allocations to pre-school services is 4,321. For the same period, there are 2,400 Inclusion Co-Ordinators in pre-school settings nationally.
More broadly, in 2022, over 6,500 children received over 10,000 AIM targeted supports in over 2,300 services nationwide.
AIM expenditure in 2022 was €35m. The below table shows the amount spent on the different AIM support Levels.
| Programme Call 2022 | Total |
|---|---|
| AIM Level 1 –Inclusion Co-Ordinator | €5m |
| AIM Level 1 – Equality, Disability & Inclusion Training | €0.1m |
| AIM Level 1 – LINC Programme | €1.5m |
| AIM Level 3 – Hanen, Lamh & Spel Training & workshop | €0.13m |
| AIM Level 5 –Equipment materials and minor capital | €0.7m |
| AIM Level 7 | €26.7m |
| City & County Childcare supports | €.75m |
| Evaluation of AIM | €0.06m |
| Total | €35m |
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