Written answers
Tuesday, 29 July 2025
Department of Education and Skills
School Curriculum
Sorca Clarke (Longford-Westmeath, Sinn Fein)
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1095. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the current budget allocation for school-based mental health initiatives, including the Junior Cycle wellbeing programme, SPHE, and so on. [41786/25]
Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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The Department of Education and Youth is committed to supporting the emotional wellbeing of our children. In 2023 the establishment of a €5m pilot programme of counselling and mental health supports for primary schools was announced. In Budget 2025, the pilot received additional funding.
Strand 1 is the provision of one-to-one counselling to support small numbers of children in primary schools in counties Cavan, Laois, Leitrim, Longford, Mayo, Monaghan and Tipperary. Panels of pre-approved private counsellors are in place to provide counselling and there are currently 45 counsellors available to support schools in these counties. In the 2023/24 school year, over 2,800 counselling sessions took place and 371 children availed of counselling provision. In the 2024/25 school year, over 5,600 counselling sessions have taken place and at least 653 children have availed of counselling provision. In October 2024, strand 1 of the pilot was extended to 61 urban DEIS primary schools in Dublin North and Dublin South-West. The schools included in the pilot have been identified by the Department of Education as supporting children from areas with some of the highest levels of disadvantage in the State.
Strand 2 of the pilot is the establishment of Education Wellbeing Teams to support 78 schools in cluster areas in Cork, Carlow, Dublin 7 and 16. To date, 20 Education Wellbeing Practitioners have been recruited. The focus of the support being provided 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 on an individual and group basis to children with mild/emerging need, using low-level therapeutically-informed approaches. The schools received a payment of €2,000 to promote and support wellbeing-focused initiatives among their school communities.
The pilot is currently being externally evaluated by the Centre for Effective Services. It is anticipated that an evaluation report will be completed by autumn 2025. Through this evaluation we are confident that we will gather valuable learning that will inform future policy and provision in this area.
In addition to the counselling pilot, my Department in partnership with Jigsaw have launched - a national programme of mental health and wellbeing resources and training for post-primary schools known as NEART. The programme complements the supports in schools such as the provision of guidance counselling and the work of NEPS, as well as other wellbeing programmes and initiatives including Student Support Team training.
A Wellbeing in Education platform on gov.ie brings together resources for school staff, students and parents to support wellbeing and resilience. This platform provides links to an extensive range of resources available to schools from the Department’s support services and agencies and the HSE and the Department of Health. Information and resources for school staff, students and parents are available on www.gov.ie/en/campaigns/851a8e-wellbeing-in-education/
The portal includes the Catalogue of Resources which provides a non-exhaustive list of documents and resources that are provided by the Department of Education (DE), its agencies, support services, other Government Departments and their agencies and by the Health Service Executive (HSE) to assist the promotion of wellbeing across school communities.
Wellbeing resources for Primary Schools
Wellbeing resources for Post- Primary Schools
This resource can be used alongside the Directory of Teacher Professional Learning (TPL) which lists relevant TPL to support the wellbeing of all in the school communities. There are many professional learning opportunities available to support teachers and school leaders to engage with aspects of wellbeing. The TPL Wellbeing Directory provides an overview of the opportunities provided by the Department of Education (DE), its agencies, support services, other Government Departments and their agencies and includes information on how to access these supports.
Teacher Professional Learning Wellbeing Directory for Primary Schools
Teacher Professional Learning Wellbeing Directory for Post-Primary Schools
While the Junior Cycle Wellbeing programme and SPHE curricula are not mental health initiatives, they do provide opportunities for the development of children’s wellbeing in the physical, social, emotional and intellectual domains.
The area of wellbeing and the promotion of positive mental health is a priority for the Department of Education and Youth. This includes promoting emotional wellbeing, resilience and positive coping skills, which support children and young people to manage the complexities of modern life.
Wellbeing is an important aspect of the curriculum. The Junior Cycle Wellbeing programme provides up to 400 hours of time-tabled learning for students across the three years of Junior Cycle. There are three pillars to all Junior Cycle Wellbeing programmes: Physical Education (PE); Social, Personal and Health Education (SPHE); and Civic, Social and Political Education (CSPE). Schools must timetable 100 hours for short courses in CSPE, another 100 hours SPHE, and 135 hours for PE. The remaining 65 hours are flexible but must be learning related to Wellbeing, such as, for example, ‘Making the Transition to First Year’, ‘Staying Safe Online’, ‘Learning to Learn’ or ‘Supporting Wellbeing Through Music’.
SPHE supports primary children's overall development and wellbeing. It emphasises fostering a positive sense of self and a motivation for lifelong learning. Children are supported in building healthy relationships, emotional awareness, and strong decision-making skills, especially in relation to personal safety and protection from harm. The curriculum promotes respect for diversity, active citizenship, and social responsibility within inclusive communities. Additionally, it equips children with resilience strategies and digital literacy to navigate both real-world and online environments safely and responsibly.
An updated Junior Cycle SPHE specification was published by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) and was rolled out for first years in all schools from September 2023. The updated Junior Cycle SPHE specification consists of four strands: ‘Understanding Myself and Others’, ‘Making Healthy Choices’, ‘Relationships and Sexuality’, and ‘Emotional Wellbeing’. The learning outcomes of the ‘Emotional Wellbeing’ Strand include that students should be able to ‘discuss the fluid nature of emotional wellbeing and ways to nurture and protect it’, to ‘consider the impact of stress and draw upon a variety of techniques to help self-regulate emotions and cope with the day-to-day stresses of life’, and to ‘discuss ways to support themselves and others in challenging times and where/how/when to seek support, if needed’.
At Senior Cycle, the SPHE specification includes a strand called ‘Health and Wellbeing’. The learning outcomes of this strand include that students should be able to explore the factors that influence mental health and wellbeing, to recognise unhelpful thinking patterns and negative self-talk, to recognise the signs and symptoms of stress and anxiety in themselves and others and recognise when help should be sought, where to go and how to access help if needed.
Portal sites have been developed by the NCCA where teachers can access SPHE teaching and learning resources for all levels in primary and post-primary. The role of the online toolkits is to provide supports for teachers in preparing for and teaching SPHE. They can also be used to support professional conversations in school and for professional development at a team or whole staff level.
My Department provides funding to all recognised schools in the Free Education Scheme by way of per capita grants. The two main grants are the Capitation grant to cater for day to day running costs including heating, lighting etc. and the Ancillary grant to cater for the cost of employing ancillary services staff. These grants may be regarded as a common grant from which the Board of Management can allocate according to its own priorities. The standard capitation funding allocations are not related to specific subjects.
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