Written answers
Tuesday, 4 November 2025
Department of Education and Skills
School Staff
Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
Link to this: Individually | In context
879. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the additional measures her Department will introduce to ensure that staff working in social, emotional and behavioural difficulties designated schools have access to appropriate, on-site mental health supports, given the high-risk and high-stress nature of their work. [59839/25]
Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context
My Department recognises the challenges and difficulties teachers can experience in schools throughout the country. In order to assist teachers to deal with these challenges and difficulties my Department has put in place a range of guidelines, information resources and training.
To assist schools in terms of Wellbeing supports for staff, the department has put in place an Occupational Health Strategy as a supportive resource for staff and leaders in schools. The aim of the Occupational Health Strategy is to promote the health and wellbeing of employees in the workplace, with a strong focus on prevention. The Occupational Health Strategy comprises the Employee Assistance Service and the Occupational Health Service. The Employee Assistance Service is provided by Spectrum.Life and is a self-referral service where school staff have access to a dedicated free-phone confidential helpline. The service is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The helpline number is 1800-411057.
The Employee Assistance Service provides advice to all school staff on a range of issues including wellbeing, bereavement, conflict and mediation. The service provides support and advice to managers to help them deal with health and wellbeing issues, personally and in the workplace. It also provides a series of webinars and presentations to promote wellbeing in schools. Where appropriate, short-term counselling is available to all school staff and their family members. A bespoke wellbeing platform and app are available offering a host of online services with access to a Digital Gym, monthly Wellbeing Series, videos, podcasts and blogs on topics around mental health, family life, exercise and nutrition. The platform is available via web, iOS app or Android app.
The National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS) provides educational psychological support to all primary and post-primary and special schools. The NEPS service provides access for all schools to:
- Psychological support in the event of a Critical Incident
- A Casework Service for individual children where there is a need for intensive consultation and assessment via a NEPS psychologist or through the Scheme for the Commissioning of Psychological Assessments (SCPA).
- A school staff Support and Development Service, to build school capability to provide a comprehensive continuum of support in schools and
- Ongoing access to advice and support for schools.
NEPS has engaged in extensive national training of school staff in the area of trauma-informed practice and have developed an eLearning course for school staff - ‘Introducing a Trauma Informed Approach: The Stress Factor - Getting the Balance Right’ which looks at the sources and impact of stress on children and young people including trauma and adverse experiences. It demonstrates how to create environments to reduce stress and focuses on developing skills that all children and young people need to better manage in school. NEPS psychologists are available to support schools implement trauma informed approaches in school following participation on the training. As a follow up to the eLearning, NEPS will deliver a new live training called Understanding Trauma- Using a Trauma Informed Approach in Schools. This training builds on the learnings from e-Learning course by: further exploring the relationship between stress and trauma; looking at some contributary factors to trauma; Looking at how neuroscience theory and research has informed understanding of the impact of trauma; guiding schools to establish a trauma informed approach, providing practical school-based trauma-informed approaches to promote safety and connection in schools. A new standalone Trauma Informed Practice resource for schools will also be available in the autumn for schools to use. Training is provided as part of the NEPS service with no cost to schools.
Guidelines on “Understanding Behaviours of Concern and Responding to Crisis Situations”, were published in December 2024 and a range of training opportunities is available to schools through the NCSE to support their engagement with the guidelines and with the broader issue of student behaviour.
No comments