James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail)
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116. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills to provide an update on the pilot counselling services for specific schools; the increased provision of funding to continue these services for another year recently announced as part of Budget 2024; if this additional funding will provide for the continuation of services in the existing schools or if new schools will be included in the pilot; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [52872/23]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 116 and 118 together.

The Department of Education is committed to supporting the emotional wellbeing of our children and I am very pleased to provide an update on the significant progress that has been made on Strands 1 and 2 of the pilot in almost 650 primary schools across the country. I am also delighted to announce that my Department has secured additional funding in Budget 2024 to continue both strands of the pilot in the selected schools for an additional year, until June 2025.

The pilot includes two Strands. Strand 1 will see the provision of one-to-one counselling to support a small number of children in all primary schools in counties Cavan, Laois, Leitrim, Longford, Mayo, Monaghan and Tipperary.

Considerable work has been undertaken to identify suitably qualified, experienced and accredited counsellors. In the absence of a single recognised counselling qualification and a national regulatory body for counselling in Ireland, at this point in time, my Department is accepting applications, on a rolling basis, from counsellors accredited with the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (IACP), the Psychological Society of Ireland (PSI) and the Irish Association of Humanistic and Integrative Psychotherapists in Ireland (IAHIP), the Irish Association of Psychotherapy and Play Therapy (IAPTP) and the Association of Child Art Psychotherapists (ACAP), and those registered with the Irish Council for Psychotherapy (ICP).

The counsellors on the panel attended an online induction webinar with NEPS in early November and are now available to start their work in schools. My Department has advised schools of their initial allocation of blocks of counselling and provided counsellor details on the are supporting schools and will continue to do so to identify and prioritise children to access the counselling support, guided by the Continuum of Support, and subject to parental or legal guardian informed consent. Guidelines for Schools have been provided to support schools in the implementation of Strand 1 of the pilot. The Guidelines include useful information for the school to use with parents, pupils and school staff in relation to the counselling provision. A dedicated webpage with information for parents, information for counsellors and information for schools is also available on gov.ie.

Strand 2 will see the establishment of a new type of support to schools from Education Wellbeing Teams and the introduction of Wellbeing Practitioners to support clusters of schools in Cork, Carlow, Dublin 7 and Dublin 16. The recruitment process for the role of Wellbeing Practitioners is complete, and training of the Wellbeing Practitioners by NEPS psychologists is currently underway. NEPS psychologists will also provide on-going oversight and professional supervision to support and maintain the work undertaken by the practitioners. This will ensure safe practice and the use of evidence-informed programmes and supports in schools.

The focus of the support to be provided under Strand 2 is on strengthening whole school preventative approaches. This includes the provision of psycho-educational support for parents and teachers, and the provision of early intervention to children with mild/emerging need, using low-level therapeutically-informed approaches.

NEPS has met with officials from the Department of Education in Northern Ireland in relation to the Healthy Happy Minds Pilot, which was the provision of counselling in schools. NEPS have also met with the Education Authority in Dorset in the UK and with a Mental Health Support Team in West Sussex in relation to the Mental Health Support Teams model. A team from NEPS will be visiting Dorset and West Sussex in the first week of December to meet with Mental Health leads, Education Mental Health Practitioners, and counsellors involved in the project. The NEPS team will also be visiting schools in the project to learn from how the project was implemented.

Through this existing pilot programme and subsequent evaluation we are confident that we will gather valuable learning that will inform future policy and provision in this area.