I propose to take Questions Nos. 424, 425, 428, 429, 430, 431 and 432 together.
NEPS is the psychological service of the Department of Education and Youth and provides critical psychological services to the almost 1 million children and young people and almost 100,000 staff who work in our primary, post-primary and special schools daily. This service is at the coalface of supporting the wellbeing and inclusion of children and young people in our schools and encompasses a broad range of work. NEPS psychologists provide an individual casework service for children with additional needs and those at risk of marginalisation due to educational disadvantage, which may include assessment, consultation or intervention. They are the first responders when schools and school communities experience critical incidents. They also provide a support and development service for school staff.
As a government we have set our commitment to double the number of educational psychologists in schools and it is clear that we need to take decisive action now to significantly increase the number of educational psychologists in NEPS.
As part of that commitment, I very much welcome that, in addition to programmes running in UCD and MIC, Maynooth University is now offering a three-year Professional Doctorate programme in Educational Psychology, to support a substantial increase in the number of qualified educational psychologists available to NEPS. The increased number of graduates from the Maynooth University programme, however, will still not realise the numbers of educational psychologists needed in schools to support the inclusion and wellbeing of all children and young people.
NEPS ratios of psychologist to pupil is c.1:4,600 – currently we have only 1 psychologist for every 4,600 children in our primary and post-primary schools. Ratios of educational psychologist to pupil in France, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Belgium range between 1:1,300 to 1: 2,500. To bring NEPS staffing closer to the average of these ratios of psychologist to student will require a significant number of additional educational psychologists.
Officials in my Department, recently, have engaged with the Department of Further and Higher Education and the Higher Education Authority in relation to an Expression of Interest process that arose to provide for a range of new professional training opportunities across a range of health and social care professions. Prioritised amongst these were the creation of further training places for educational psychologists. This prioritisation was on foot of the commitment in the Programme for Government for Education to double the number of college places for educational psychologists. The HEIs have been advised, to ensure that proposals via the Expression of Interest process are in line with CORU Standards of Proficiency and Criteria for Education and Training Programmes for Educational Psychologists. CORU is Ireland’s multi-profession health and social care regulator. Practice placements as part of this programme will ensure that the graduate Educational Psychologists will have achieved all the Standards of Proficiency upon successful completion of an education and training programme.
Our ambition is to grow the access that children and young people in our schools have to educational psychology services. NEPS is a valued service and while committed to its expansion I am also committed to ensuring that the educational psychologists in NEPS are those of the highest quality and competence. All graduates of the existing educational psychology professional programmes in Ireland, and those of any new programme that is introduced as part of the current process, will be supported to the highest level by the NEPS service – the national statutory educational psychological service for children and young people in Ireland.
