Colman Noctor: Long wait lists put children with additional needs at risk

Receiving an appropriate education is a fundamental human right for all, regardless of ability

Government needs to honour its duty of care to children with additional needs, Colman Noctor writes

A child with additional needs is challenging, but accessing State help makes it all the more so. The pandemic disrupted support services, but the issues pre-date March 2020. Long waiting lists for physical, psychological, educational or functional assessments for a child with suspected additional needs have been an issue for more than a decade.

Accessing support is often arduous, despite the clear need for early assessment and intervention. The waiting times are excessive, even if you are lucky enough to source a private evaluation, and the wait for the subsequent recommended treatment is often longer.

With parents and early years educators increasingly aware of the complexity of children’s needs, there has been a significant increase in the number of people seeking assessment, support, and treatment.

As these difficulties are being detected earlier, most educators will advise parents to look for a formal evaluation to get an insight into, and understanding of, the child’s needs. However, when parents start on this journey, most are unaware of how complex the process can be.

Exact statistics on waiting times are hard to calculate as the availability of services can be a postcode lottery. An Oireachtas joint committee in 2022 heard that about 4,000 children were waiting on a diagnostic assessment to get an additional-needs school place.

Also, last year, the HSE stated that the average waiting time for assessment was 19 months, despite a legal requirement for them to be completed within six months.

This wait is probably longer because of the many private mental-health professionals who have closed their waiting lists due to high demand.

System is broken

Despite promise after promise of successive governments to address children with additional needs, the system remains broken. Both my nephews have additional needs, and I have witnessed the struggles my sister has faced in securing support. It took numerous pleading letters to services, politicians, and advocacy representatives before she received a satisfactory response.

Children are made to wait while they deteriorate and will possibly require more urgent or intense intervention by the time they are assessed.

Assessment is only half the battle. If you are lucky enough to get access to a professional who identifies your child’s needs, the next battle is accessing intervention. This is not just the case for the mental-health system. Appointments for speech and language, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, or psychiatric or psychotherapeutic interventions, even after an assessment is carried out and recommendations are made, often have unacceptably long waiting times.

The role of education is critical to children’s development, especially for a child with additional needs. The right school environment can be transformational for such a child, but the wrong one can negatively affect their life trajectory.

I spoke with Miriam Kenny, chairperson of Involve Autism, a voluntary parent-led support and advocacy group in south Dublin. The group was founded to campaign for appropriate school placements for autistic children with additional educational needs. The difficulties experienced by parents in securing an appropriate education for their children are a source of great stress, anguish, and anxiety, says Ms Kenny.

While autistic students are well supported in “excellent schools” in D6/D6W, Ms Kenny says, the problem has been that students who needed the support of an autism class were unable to attend schools in their local community with their siblings and peers. Through Involve Autism’s campaign, there have been improvements in the D6/D6W area, but, unfortunately, a number of schools across the country have not set up classes and, as a result, children are unable to secure an appropriate school placement in their local community.

Involve Autism accessed records in 2021 under the Freedom of Information (FOI) and found that €72,000 is spent daily transporting children with additional needs across south Dublin at an annual cost of circa €11.6m. The money poured into this workaround could go a long way towards funding appropriate local education.

It is not only at a funding level that barriers exist. Ms Kenny suggests that some well-established schools continue to be reluctant to set up additional classes for autistic children, while Educate Together and DEIS schools have stepped forward to open classes.

Involve Autism parents also recount difficulties when their child’s school placement breaks down and that this can lead to a child being ‘managed’ out of a school due to the lack of appropriate support.

Parents of autistic children often have little choice about schools and feel lucky to be accepted. This can leave them fearful of raising their voices when things are difficult for their child. They can be left in a stressful and vulnerable position, with no one to help them to advocate for their child or navigate the education system.

Autism classes

Ms Kenny is a strong advocate for the benefits of an appropriate educational placement and says it’s heartening to hear parents describe what a huge difference an autism class has made to their child and family life. Also, she says, school principals speak about the difference it has made to the whole school community to have an autism class.

International evidence of effective models of inclusive education is varied. There are reports from Malta and Canada that strategies, like the New Brunswick model of educational inclusion, can have positive results, but how to manage inclusion in mainstream settings is a source of ongoing international and national debate.

Even if the ideal solution is unclear, the Government must step up and honour its responsibility to provide children with special needs and their families with more support.

Our schools need to be fully supported by the National Council for Special Education.

The Department of Education needs to establish more autism classes, teachers need autism-specific training, and schools need wrap-around services to provide support to students in an autism class.

Feeling safe and getting an appropriate education are fundamental human rights for all, regardless of ability.

The need for additional support for children has skyrocketed in recent years, and we can all acknowledge that change takes time. But, surely, provisions can be put in place to make access to appropriate school places less arduous for parents of children with additional needs.

In time, I hope we can spare these children the heartache of driving past the local schools attended by siblings and peers to travel to another school far from home.

• Dr Colman Noctor is a child psychotherapist