Gillian Toole: Implement Needs-Based Special Education Needed

And thank you Deputy Quinn-Livan for chairing our committee so ably, tolerating a lot of to and fro and maybe time overruns but I think the the purpose and the spirit that the committee members have brought to the task in hand is manifest in the report and I would urge all members of both houses and across all of the departments to please pay special attention to it. It's 42 pages and I suppose the key pages would be pages 9 to 11 with the 33 recommendations within but none of that was possible without the submissions, the in-person attendance, the work of the Secretariat in the background keeping us on the straight and narrow, providing research, providing guidance. We have had contributions from special needs assistants, personal assistants, teachers, allied healthcare professionals, indeed service providers at the Coalface and as you said Minister the National Council for Special Education and I completely appreciate that whole school communities have had quite a lot of I would say turmoil and a lot of policy change to grapple with in the last recent number of years and they've risen to the challenge wholeheartedly and are producing fantastic results for our children, for our future and trying to manage change in policy with finite resources and in often in off times very scarce resources that in itself places immense stress on the system and then trying to coordinate communication with parents, linking in with the health sector and linking in with all of the different service providers that may be appropriate along the way but I think it's very clear what has become evident and it's manifest in the UNCRPD Article 24 is that the focus now has to be needs-based, the needs of the child and not necessarily set in concrete in a diagnostic process and we are moving towards a change in that area and I suppose I'm quite an impatient person so I suppose I'm always thinking of what actions can we actually implement because we're part of a five-year cycle and I hope that the recommendations in the report don't take the full term to actually achieve implementation and I suppose one example of where action has come about quite quickly is in the and you've referred to it yourself and I visited St. Bernadette's in Letterkenny on Monday, my niece is on the on the staff there and they welcomed Mr. Harron, the principal, the recent funding for transition, that transition piece from primary to secondary and secondary to tertiary or to service provision, that is most welcome so you're hitting the ground running so more please would be most welcome. But I suppose just to move to Article 24 and again the objective there and the right that underpins all of that is that all learners with disabilities that they can access an inclusive high quality education system with the appropriate supports, reasonable accommodation and without discrimination and I think the the results in the report will address all of that in succession and I suppose it's fair to say at this stage that national policy it has evolved considerably but if I cast my mind back to the time when I was a child and my mother was a primary teacher in County Meath and as kids all we wanted to do when the bell rang was get out into the car and go home and we didn't actually quite understand why mom might have been the extra hour or even the extra hour and a half or two hours after school and what she was actually doing at that time is it was an ad hoc support and assistance to children in her care that needed it so now if we cross-check that with the current situation, the Epson Act, the review thereof and the recommendations, things are moving in the right direction but again I would refer to my impatience and what I would like to see and I think the signs are good but that education health and disability supports that are currently fragmented that across regions perhaps across schools and between individual children that all of that will move to a point of where we have interagency coordination and we have joined up working that is essential we know this the task force within the Department of the Taoiseach, there's your own Department of Education and Youth, we have the Department of Children and Equality and Disability so it's it's more of those links so I think I'm being cheeky now maybe car here look of the committee I'm jumping ahead but I think more attendances at our committee meetings either in public or in private session that we keep that we're very much aware of what the different groups are doing and that we're all on the same page and that we can deliver outcomes for children as quickly as possible to refer to some of the points that witnesses have emphasized and I suppose one the key starting point is that children's ability to learn and engage meaningful meaningfully in school it's linked to emotional regulation psychological safety and access to timely therapeutic supports and you did refer to this Kenneth and the fantastic work being there being done there through the medium of equine assisted therapy and that type of approach that helps with regulation that helps with the release of oxytocin and then oxytocin physiologically helps bring or biochemically I should say helps bring around bring about calmness and then when we have calmness and regulation channels open for learning and the good work in this Kenneth is being replicated it's been replicated in Clonalvie in County Meath with Joy Murray with Stuart's Care in Kilklune through Terry Brosnan and her team there and it's more of that that we wish to see and I do appreciate that officials are looking for an evidence base but I would like to flag one thing with you that I noticed on social media and that's a Department of Agriculture funded equine therapy programs that are available around the country for the children of farming communities that may that would have additional needs so I'm just wondering if the Department of Agriculture can do it perhaps maybe we can see more of that provided through your own department and I'm very happy to work with you on that. Well-being supports have well been proven to help sustain inclusion for for students with complex needs and there is a requirement and we refer to it in the report for holistic multidisciplinary social and emotional supports particularly page 25 of the report as I said we visited we had a fantastic visit to Limerick to Corpus Christi we met with the team there we've had the team from St. James's primary school in to visit us I've been to St. Bernadette's we have St. Mary's in County Meath as well that's not to take away for one minute from the work that's being done in special classes I would also like to commend the library services as well through the local authorities Meath County Council in particular they through the healthy the healthy Meath program have embraced well-being classes through and story massage through Una Curran and she has actually done that online with other local authorities if colleagues would like into information to that effect I can pass on her details and again I there's the whole area referenced in the report of art and music therapy as well and I would bring one book to the attention of members again that question of evidence basis it's something that's you know is there an evidence base to all of these integrated therapies there is indeed there's an excellent book called art cure the science of how the arts transform our health and it's actually very beneficial even to elder care as well so that's something I'd like to flag in the area of recruitment I would like to commend Minister Lawless and Minister Harkin with the move towards the increased college places for occupational therapists speech and language therapists students of psychology and the reforms that are coming in the area of education they are most welcome particular mention I would like to give to Dumboin College of Further Education who are now linking in with enable Ireland and the HSE primary care teams so to conclude I would highly recommend to all members to please read the report the area of personalized budgets and personal assistance again we refer to that minimally in the report but that's an area that's there for for future development and it undercuts all of our work on the committee I'll finish just with this one quotation from Margaret Mead quite a famous American anthropologist but she has fantastic observation of I suppose social norms of her day but they are very relevant at this point in time where we are and you've you've made similar comment yourself this afternoon the solution to adult problems tomorrow depends in large measure upon how our children grow up today Go raibh maith agat.