Jen Cummins
Question:263. Deputy Jen Cummins asked the Minister for Education and Youth the resources which will be needed to expand counselling and primary schools pilot programme for strand one and two. [62404/25]
View answerThursday, 13 November 2025
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The Department of Education and Youth is committed to supporting the emotional wellbeing of our children. In 2023, the department established a €5 million pilot programme of Counselling and Mental Health supports for primary schools. The pilot received additional funding in subsequent budgets, which will now run until June 2026. The Counselling in Primary Schools Pilot consists of two strands.
Strand 1 is the provision of one-to-one counselling to support small numbers of children in schools in counties Cavan, Laois, Leitrim, Longford, Mayo, Monaghan and Tipperary. The Department of Education and Youth have created panels of pre-approved private counsellors to provide counselling under the pilot and there are currently 43 counsellors available to work in these areas. In the 2023/2024 school year, more than 2,800 counselling sessions took place and I am pleased to inform you that 371 children availed of counselling. In the 2024/2025 school year, more than 6,200 counselling sessions took place and 752 children availed of counselling supports. Counselling blocks have been allocated to schools in these counties for the 2025/2026 school year and counselling supports continue to be provided under the pilot.
In October 2024, my department announced the extension of Strand 1 of the Counselling in Primary Schools Pilot to 61 urban DEIS primary schools. These schools, in Dublin North City and Dublin South-West, have been identified by the department as supporting children from areas with some of the highest levels of disadvantage in the State. In the 2024/2025 school year, over 400 counselling sessions have taken place and 56 children have availed of counselling provision in these areas. Counselling blocks have been allocated to schools to these schools for the 2025/2026 school year and counselling supports continue to be provided under the pilot.
Strand 2 of the pilot is the establishment of Education Wellbeing Teams to support 77 schools in cluster areas in Cork, Carlow, Dublin 7 and Dublin 16. To date, 20 Education Wellbeing Practitioners have been recruited. The focus of the support 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 to emerging need using low-level therapeutically informed approaches.
The pilot is currently being externally evaluated by the Centre for Effective Services. It is anticipated that an evaluation report will be completed by the end of 2025. Through this evaluation the department are confident that valuable learning will be gathered that will inform future policy and provision in this area.