Expert group calls for increased supports for marginalised school children, including emotional counselling, hot lunches and after school services
Speaking at an Oireachtas Joint Committee on Education later today, Dr Paul Downes, Director of the DCU Educational Disadvantage Centre, will address the priority issues and policy gaps facing marginalised students in primary and post primary DEIS schools and other settings.
Dr Downes stresses the need for emotional counselling and therapeutic supports in and around schools to address trauma, anxiety, mental health difficulties of vulnerable children. He also raises important issues such as the provision of hot school lunches and the need to look at an alternative to suspension and expulsion in schools.
“Trauma and adversity impacting on mental health of our children and young people are exacerbated in this COVID-19 pandemic, including the additional emotional and financial strain of lockdown on so many families.
This requires a heightened awareness of policy makers about a key strategic gap in supports in Irish schools that places Ireland radically out of step with many European countries regarding emotional counsellors and therapists in and around every school,” says Dr Paul Downes.
Dr. Downes opening statement can be viewed here, and the background paper is available here. You can also view his address to the committee.
The expert group recommends that emotional counselling and therapeutic supports, such as play and art therapy, be available in all DEIS schools and arguably beyond, as a key support for the mental health strain and trauma experienced by so many children.
Speaking about her experience in the classroom, Sinead Crossan, a teacher in Central Model Senior DEIS School, Dublin 1 said
“Ideally I would recommend art and/ or play therapy for 1/4 of my class. However, this year the service is so limited due to COVID-19, that no students in my class have been prioritised. This is a real concern regarding this cohort of 6th class children as they transition to secondary school next year. This lack of availability of emotional counselling support leaves these children extremely vulnerable and potentially without the necessary skills, as they progress in their educational journey."
A concern of mine surrounds children in temporary and/ or emergency accommodation. Many of these accommodations offer very limited access to cooking facilities and for these children, a hot school lunch could be their only hot meal of the day,” says Ms. Crossan.
The importance of providing adequate hot meals in schools will also be raised, with the recommendation that hot lunches be a routine part of Irish school life as they are in many other European countries such as Finland, France, UK, Lithuania, Slovakia, Spain, Slovenia, Austria.
Dr. Downes said
“The commitment by the Government to continue to review and expand the roll-out of the new Hot School Meals initiative is a welcome and vitally important one. However, there is a need for a much more substantial financial commitment to expand this across DEIS and other schools nationally so it is not simply a hit and miss approach depending on which schools can or cannot avail of this national scheme.”
Other issues and recommendations to be discussed as part of the Committee meeting include increase use and resourcing for multidisciplinary team alternatives to suspension, expulsion and reduced timetables, meaning rather than using a strategy of exclusion or suspension to discipline a student, we look at supporting children with complex needs with emotional counsellors, occupational therapists and speech and language therapists. Concrete policy and funding commitments are needed to build on the DEIS 2017 Action Plan commitment to expand multidisciplinary team supports to primary schools as alternatives to suspension.
The team will also recommend the expansion of DEIS school funding provision to add new DEIS schools without cutting existing DEIS schools; a national strategic commitment to the arts for social inclusion, involving after school services for marginalised groups; and a national strategic policy to recognise children’s geographies and support participatory outdoor learning for marginalised communities.
Details of Dr. Downes appearance at the Oireachtas Education committee are here.
About DCU Educational Disadvantage Centre
Founded in 2000 by the late Dr. Ann Louise Gilligan, the DCU Educational Disadvantage Centre, located in its Institute of Education, engages in interdisciplinary research, policy and practice regarding poverty and social inclusion in education at global, EU and national levels, as well as local community contexts.
Many of the Centre’s reports are published on the EU Commission’s School Education Gateway and have been cited in a range of official EU Policy documents in areas of early school leaving, key competences for lifelong learning, transitions, inclusive education and future of learning. The Centre has been involved in European comparative research projects on parental involvement for marginalised groups across 10 European cities, access to education across 12 countries and has led an EU Commission published report on inclusive systems in and around schools that devised a structural indicators self-evaluation tool for inclusive systems for schools and policy makers across Europe, officially translated by the EU Commission into 22 European languages, and published by the Commission.