Several schools in Dublin, Cork and Carlow will be assigned new in-house education and mental health teams in the coming months, the Irish Mirror understands.
Education Minister Norma Foley is expected to launch the second phase of a new pilot scheme this week that will see counselling services rolled out in primary schools.
Last month Minister Foley announced the first phase of this new initiative that will see one-to-one counselling provision rolled out to support primary schools in Cavan, Laois, Leitrim, Longford, Mayo, Monaghan and Tipperary.
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Department sources told the Irish Mirror that the second strand of the counselling pilot will see the establishment of new in-house education wellbeing and mental health teams in “clusters” of primary schools.
It is understood that the clusters of schools will be identified in Cork, North Dublin and Carlow.
It is expected that Minister Folley will announce further details of the scheme in the coming days
The provision of enhanced in-school support to school clusters will see the introduction of a new role called an “Education Wellbeing/Mental Health Practitioner”. These Wellbeing Practitioners will work under the supervision of National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS) psychologists.
The focus of the new role will be on strengthening whole-school preventative approaches, including the provision of psycho-education support for parents and teachers.
There will also be an emphasis on early intervention for groups of children or individual children with mild/emerging needs, using low-level therapeutically-informed approaches.
Sources said that the practitioners will be graduates who will “ideally” come from graduate courses in psychology, education or social sciences.
These graduates will require additional training which will be provided by NEPS psychologists and their ongoing work in schools will be under the close supervision of NEPS.
Minister Foley received Cabinet approval last month to roll out the well-being pilot programme. Some €5m was allocated for the new scheme.
The first part, which was announced by the Minister in May, will see counselling rolled out to children in primary schools in seven counties across the country.
NEPS will support schools by establishing panels of qualified counsellors and by helping to identify the students who would most benefit from this intervention.
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