Educational Disadvantage Centre Welcomes Department of Education Announcement on Specialist Emotional Counsellors to Dublin DEIS Primary Schools

DCU Educational Disadvantage Centre welcomes the recent postbudget Department of Education announcement on extension of the national pilot for Specialist Emotional Counsellors/Therapists to Dublin DEIS Primary Schools 61 DEIS primary schools are now to be included across areas of Finglas, Ballymun, Darndale, Tallaght and Clondalkin.

This issue of the need for specialist emotional counsellors/therapists in all primary and secondary schools to provide one to one supports for children and young people experiencing trauma and adverse childhood experiences has been a key policy priority of DCU Educational Centre. It was a priority issue discussed at the Centre’s National Forum 2022, Resilient, Inclusive Systems for Vulnerable Groups: Key Areas for Development in the new National Children’s Policy Framework and Spatial Turn for Equitable Inclusive Systems Symposium 2024 held on DCU’s St. Patrick’s Campus, Drumcondra. This issue has been foregrounded by the Centre in the national media over recent years, including in The Irish Times in 2023 and 2024. as well as at the Centre’s meeting with the OECD to inform the OECD’s 2024 DEIS review. 

It has been a central issue in the Educational Disadvantage Centre’s invited submissions and presentations to three successive Joint Oireachtas Education Committees on this issue, concerning Covid Pandemic Supports 2020, School Bullying 2021 and Mental Health in Education 2022.

These invited submissions and presentations build on the Centre’s research work at EU Commission level on system gaps in counselling supports in Irish schools compared to many European countries impacting on early school leaving, as well as on the role of trauma and school suspension in the experiences of homeless men in Ireland. The three successive Joint Oireachtas Education Committee Reports identified such specialist emotional counsellors/therapists as an ‘urgent priority’ in all primary and secondary schools and a national pilot at primary was established by the Minister for Education in October 2022 across 7 rural counties.

Professor Paul Downes, Director of DCU Educational Disadvantage Centre states:

This recent Department of Education commitment to extend the national pilot of specialist emotional counsellors/therapists for one to one supports to 61 Dublin DEIS primary schools is a very welcome expansion of the national pilot for these vital school based services. While this is a notable milestone in the development of these specialist supports in primary schools nationally, the Department of Education’s recognition of these supports as central to DEIS school supports is a further significant strategic step forward. This expansion will hopefully serve as a key stepping stone not only for establishing these specialist emotional counsellors/therapists in all primary schools nationally but also in secondary schools where they are urgently needed.