Michael Lowry (Tipperary, Independent)
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685.To ask the Minister for Education and Skills to conduct an urgent review of the school leaver process to ensure a smooth transition from children’s services to adult services for individuals with autism and complex needs, as recommended by an organisation (details supplied) in its pre-Budget 2025 submission; will the Minister take this matter into consideration when finalising her Budget 2025 plans; and if she will make a statement on the matter.[35684/24]

Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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I want to thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. The Department of Education (DoE) recognises the importance of supporting student transitions into and from school settings while ensuring that students with more complex needs are supported optimally.

The recently launched National Strategy and Action Plan for Lifelong guidance is about helping people to make better choices about their education, career and life choices, through information, advice and guidance counselling services. The new proposals in the action plan include providing guidance delivered by appropriately trained professionals for students in the country’s 130 special schools for the first time.

In addition, the NCSE has published transition guidelines between all stages of education that are designed to assist parents to support their children to make successful transitions.

Under the Comprehensive Employment Strategy (CES) for People with Disabilities, the DoE is leading on the implementation of a number of actions supporting transitions and progression in education from early childhood through to further education and training and higher education.

The Comprehensive Employment Strategy (CES) Transitions Pilot is a pilot programme to support the transition for young people with disabilities to improve access to, and opportunities for, post-school options. The pilot project ran in 20 schools (10 in Dublin/10 in Galway) from late 2022 until June of this year. A plan to roll out a second round of the pilot in 40 special schools only for the 2024/25 school year is currently underway.

A second pilot programme – the DAF 22 Transitions programme is a collaboration between the Department and Walkinstown Association for People with an Intellectual Disability (WALK), an experienced NGO working in the area of disability services. The key objective is similar to CES - ensure that students are supported to make optimal transitions from school.

Both pilot programmes are subject to an ongoing external evaluation. The outcomes of these evaluations will ensure that learning informs policy in this area.