Principals meet amid calls for return of school therapists

PRINCIPALS of special schools around Ireland have met in Cork to discuss their concerns about a lack of therapeutic supports in schools, amid calls to reinstate therapists immediately.

The meeting comes just weeks after Tánaiste Micheál Martin called for a school-based approach to therapies, and Minister of State for Disabilities Anne Rabbitte called for the Progressing Disabilities Services (PDS) model to be “retired”.

The HSE’s PDS model for children and young people reconfigured children’s disability services five years ago. The new model saw clinicians, such as occupational therapists, speech-and-language therapists, and physios removed from schools across Ireland and placed on Children’s Disability Network teams (CDNTs).

The aim of CDNTs was to provide multi-disciplinary therapy services to children in their communities and local areas.

However, the decision to remove therapists from schools was met with a backlash from parents and principals, and, in September 2021, Ms Rabbitte pledged to return therapists to special schools across Ireland, though this has yet to be achieved.

Speaking at the Fianna Fáil ard fheis last April, Ms Rabbitte labelled the removal of school therapists a “mistake”, and called for the PDS model to be “retired” by the next government.

An advisor for the minister told The Echo that Ms Rabbitte’s comments are in the context of what the party position will be for a general election.

Ms Rabbitte also revealed plans to launch a pilot programme this year, which will see special schools given a grant to hire therapists themselves.

A dozen principals of special schools for children with moderate, severe, or profound intellectual disabilities, met in Cork to discuss their concerns.

Speaking to The Echo following the meeting, Anne Hartnett, principal of St Paul’s Special School in Montenotte, said the vast majority of principals at the meeting confirmed that their schools are without therapists as a result of the PDS model.

“While a small number of schools are receiving input from some therapists, it is not uniform, it is not consistent, and it is not even touching the surface of the needs of the pupils in our special schools,” Ms Hartnett stated.

“Quite simply, it is not enough at all.”

Ms Hartnett added that staff at special schools are being asked to fill the gap, “for which they do not have training and have been correctly advised by their respective unions not to fill”.

“That in itself is so very hard as we are looking at the children regress daily because of the lack of therapeutic intervention,” she said. “Schools are the one constant in a child’s life and we pick up the shortfall in so many ways, but this we simply cannot do.

“The expertise of therapists is required daily and that is what has been lacking since PDS began.

“In my own school, we have been without onsite therapy since 2018.

“That is 97 children — and those who graduated since then — who have not received any meaningful direct intervention in school for six years.

“How can that be right?

“Special school staff, on behalf of their pupils, feel let down, neglected, ignored, and undervalued.

“Those feelings pale compared to the impact on the children themselves and their families.”