Children with special educational needs must be given priority during crisis

Fórsa’s 13,000-strong Education Division has called on the Department of Education and Skills (DES) to ensure that children with special educational needs are properly supported during the coronavirus crisis.

The union, which represents over 9,000 special needs assistants (SNAs), says it fears the Department’s approach to the deployment of SNAs during the crisis risks exacerbating the educational disadvantage that children with special educational needs experience.

This is at a time when they and their families are under extreme stress due to the absence of the familiar school environment and the pressures of social distancing, which are particularly difficult for children with special needs to understand and cope with.

Fórsa notes that the biggest cohort of schools’ staff – teachers – have generally remained focused on providing educational supports to their students at this time.

The union says that SNAs should similarly be deployed to support the students they normally work with – students who, by definition, have special needs not experienced by the wider school community. Fórsa maintains this can best be done by SNAs:

• Providing enhanced supports to the children who are familiar with them, on a remote basis, to help them navigate an unfamiliar and difficult period of relative isolation and absence of familiar school supports and routine, and to provide continued educational supports to them throughout this period, and
• Providing new and additional supports to the parents, guardians and families of children with special educational needs, many of them working parents, who have been coping with school closures since 13^th

Fórsa believes it would be damaging to children with special educational needs if SNAs were to be allocated to other roles in the absence of adequate supports for their students.

The union also fears that confusion and poor communication from the DES and the HSE over Garda vetting and the potential reallocation of SNAs to other roles in the HSE has spread concerns that they may be assigned to work with vulnerable elderly people.

These are roles that the vast majority of SNAs are neither qualified for, nor experienced in.

Fórsa is particularly disappointed that the Minister for Education and Skills has persisted in making statements that imply SNAs will be allocated to nursing and medical roles, for which they are unqualified, in spite of his department’s assurances to the contrary.

The union, therefore, calls for an unequivocal assurance that elderly people, other HSE patients and clients, and SNAs themselves will not be put at risk in this way.

In this regard, Fórsa notes the assurances it received from the Department last week (Wednesday 2^nd April) that SNAs who are reallocated on a temporary basis during the Covid-19 emergency will not be reassigned to nursing or front-line care roles. The department confirmed that any reassignments would be designed to facilitate “the assignment of SNAs into community services for children with a disability” and that “SNAs may be asked to provide remote supports to families of children they are familiar with.”

On this basis, Fórsa has told its members to continue to co-operate fully with the remote provision of supports to families of children who they are familiar with, including scheduled calls or video links with advice on routines, home schooling, behaviour management and social stories on Covid-19. And also to the expanded role of providing much-needed remote supports to the families of children with special educational needs, or to services for children with disabilities who they are less familiar with.

In order to ensure that SNAs are not assigned to roles for which they are untrained and unqualified Fórsa will be issuing an instruction to SNA members not to undertake work other than the remote support role with students with special educational needs.

This is necessary due to the lack of clarity on what other duties may be required outside of the home, and also due to the need to ensure that SNAs can only be asked to work safely.

Fórsa remains willing to discuss this situation with the DES and HSE once clarity on their expectations of SNAs has been provided. However, the union cannot accept that any SNA should be compulsorily reassigned as a healthcare assistant – a role for which, in the vast majority of cases, they are not qualified.

The union has also advised SNAs to continue, at all times, to follow the general HSE and Government advice on measures to contain the coronavirus, and to fill in the Garda vetting form that has been distributed in the context of temporary reassignments.

Fórsa has been willing to engage with the Department of Education and Skills since the onset of this crisis. As recently as this week (Tuesday 7^th April) the union put the following proposal to the Department:

That SNAs could be assigned to work in the following areas:

• Community services for children with a disability, where SNAs could be asked to provide remote supports to families of children who they are familiar with. This to include scheduled calls or video links with advice on routines, home schooling, behaviour management and social stories on Covid-19.
• SNAs could also be asked to provide remote supports to the families of children, or to young people in services for children with a disability with whom they are less familiar.
• Any requirements for SNAs to engage in face to face activities with students and their families should then be the subject of further discussion once the current public health restrictions have been removed. Such discussions will not result in SNAs being reassigned as HSE healthcare assistants.

To date the Department of Education and Skills has not responded to this proposal.