Dept warns of shortage of educational psychologists

Officials in the Department of Education have warned of an even greater shortage of educational psychologists for children in schools if new standards to regulate the profession are accepted.

It is one of a number of recruitment and infrastructural difficulties related to the provision of services to children in need of additional supports outlined in a briefing note prepared for Minister for Education Helen McEntee by officials in her department.

The document refers to current difficulties in recruitment to fill educational psychologist vacancies and it warns of a potential new one which will leave the National Educational Psychology Service (NEPS) “incapable of recruiting sufficient numbers of psychologists to deliver educational psychological needs of children” in schools here.

The service loses an average of 12 psychologists annually and the note details how current doctoral training programmes here produce just 14 graduates each year.

“This allows for NEPS to recruit only 14 graduates annually, barely enough to cover annual attrition rates and not enough to fill the vacancies adequately,” it states.

The note goes on to warn that plans by health and social care regulator body CORU to develop a structure to ensure that all practicing psychologists meet a consistent level of professional competence are likely to cause additional recruitment difficulties for NEPS.

It states that while there will be a transition, during which practitioners who do not attain the higher standards will continue to be able to use the title ‘psychologist’, at the end of the process only those with approved qualifications will be able to work in the profession.

“While the department is committed to regulation of psychologists and has the highest regard for public safety,” Helen McEntee is advised, “there are serious concerns in relation to a number of issues with the proposed education and training standards”.

“The standards as drafted are problematic, particularly given our current recruitment challenges.”

It concludes that the CORU proposal, if accepted, will leave NEPS incapable of recruiting sufficient numbers of psychologists.

Special classes

The minister has also been warned of strains in relation to the provision of additional special classes in schools, both in relation to infrastructure and staffing.

For many families this is a pressing issue. Last Friday more than 50 parents of primary school aged autistic children protested outside the Department of Education over a lack of school places for their children.

Parents told RTÉ News of multiple applications to primary schools or special schools for a school place for this coming September, and of multiple rejection letters.

Some of the parents remained overnight at the gates of the building on Dublin’s Marlborough Street to highlight the urgency of the matter.

The department has estimated that 400 new special classes and 300 new special school places will be required every year for the next three years.

It says demand at post primary level is expected to increase significantly.

Officials have warned of “a number of challenges in maintaining this accelerated delivery of additional specialist provision – particularly in relation to capital funding to refurbish existing school accommodation and to provide additional accommodation, as well as in relation to teacher supply to fill positions in new special classes and special schools”.

Therapies

The document also briefs the new minister on “ongoing challenges” recruiting therapists to fully staff disability services teams that are supposed to provide a range of therapies such as occupational therapy and speech and language supports to children in need.

Parents and the management bodies of special schools have long complained that such supports are non-existent in many special schools across the country.

Minister McEntee is advised by her officials that “these challenges are reflective of the issues affecting the wider health and social care sector”.

While approximately half of all special schools had therapeutic supports prior to the Covid-19 closure of schools, according to the briefing note “the HSC was slow in reinstating these supports”.

“Engagement with schools, particularly special schools, as well as with management bodies and advocacy groups, suggests that there are significant challenges in respect to provision of therapy services for children.

“Those working in special education sites the lack of sustained support from therapy or psychology services provided by the HSC as having a negative impact on students developments and in particular on their behaviors,” the note states.