Parents hit out at HSE plans for special schools
That is the warning from the parents of children attending 11 special schools across Cork.
They met at Our Lady of Good Counsel school in Ballincollig last night to discuss the HSE’s plans to reconfigure therapy resources such as speech therapy, occupational therapy, and physiotherapy into geographic-based teams.
It will mean the therapists, who are currently based in special schools, will have to travel to mainstream schools to work with special needs children enrolled there.
The parents want the HSE to abandon the plan, which they say will not work.
Our Lady of Good Counsel has 68 students, all diagnosed with a moderate learning disability.
However, 14 have an additional diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder, 12 have additional complex diagnosed conditions, and 23 have other conditions such as Down’s syndrome.
Principal Siobhan Allen said the reconfiguration proposals would result in an inevitable reduction in the level of service to children in special schools, and an inevitable decrease in the quality of service they get.
The board of management and the parents’ association said the parents have two major fears: That the pupils of special needs schools will not get the attention they need, and that special needs schools will be left with a skeleton service.
“Each special school has its own specific history, relationship with its community, different levels of support, and specific vision,” they said.
“This makes consultation with individual schools, even though difficult, all the more important.
“We know from experience that a ‘one-size-fits-all, top-down approach’ will not produce the best results for children who are in need of excellent services from skilled people.
“It is our opinion that the only realistic way to achieve this is to have specialist teams with realistic case loads.”
A HSE spokesperson said the proposals are designed to increase consistency and standardisation in the way early intervention services and services for school-aged children with disabilities are delivered.
It said the project is not designed to reduce therapy services to children in special schools in order to increase the services to children with special needs in mainstream education.
“Rather, it is to ensure that the resources available are used to best effect, in order to provide health supports and ongoing therapy to all children in line with their prioritised needs,” the HSE said.
The Cork parents argued that the new geographic-based model will see therapists clocking up huge mileage travelling to all the schools, thereby diluting the service to special needs schools.
Noreen Desmond, the chairwoman of Our Lady of Good Counsel’s parents’ association, says the system, which has been introduced in Limerick, is not working.
“We have spoken to principals and parents there who say it is not working. Some of the therapy teams have up to 70 schools on their books. It is a serious dilution of the service.”
The parents recognise that children with special needs in mainstream schools need therapy services as well.
However, Ms Desmond said the children attending special needs schools have been assessed as requiring extra supports. “If my child was fit to go to a mainstream school, I would have sent him there. Special needs schools should be exempt from this plan.”
The HSE said it would continue working with parents and schools before any changes are implemented.
“No decisions regarding staff reorganisation or reassignment have been made as yet in respect of the Cork area,” the HSE said.
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