Schools ‘need help to support special needs children’

SCHOOLS must be given greater information and confidence to help them include children with special needs, a support group said yesterday.

The National Parents’ and Siblings’ Alliance (NPSA) said all of society faces a challenge of understanding the life it creates for people who are different and trying to create a society which respects and welcomes all. The group was formed in 1998 by parents and siblings of people with an intellectual disability to represent the views of others like them living and working with people with an intellectual disability and autism.

NPSA director Seamus Greene said the Department of Education must begin to implement the National Council for Special Education plan, published a year ago to implement laws on education for those with special needs.