To ask the Minister of Education what plans he has to increase educational psychologist capacity to deal with the backlog of children awaiting assessment to provide assistance where needed for children and young people whose mental health and wellbeing has been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Education Authority’s (EA) Psychology Service completed a recruitment exercise in July 2020, successfully recruiting eight educational psychologists who have now joined the Service.

To address any future shortfall of suitably qualified educational psychologists within the EA’s workforce, I have recently approved a business case to increase the number of students on the Doctorate in Educational, Child and Adolescent Psychology course provided by Queen’s University, Belfast from six in 2018 to ten for the 2020/21 and 2021/22 academic years.