To ask the Minister of Education to detail (i) the investment provided to sectoral bodies and directly to schools during 2020/21 to provide mental health support for primary and post-primary pupils impacted by the pandemic; (ii) the mental health programmes, including where they are being provided; and (iii) what percentage of pupils have access to support.

The Education Authority has advised that:-

(i) The ‘Restart Wellbeing Fund’ was put in place under the auspices of DE Education Restart and was specifically to promote the health, wellbeing and resilience of school populations. Funding was based on their enrolment figure for the 2019-20 academic year. In addition, Education Otherwise Than at School (EOTAS) centres and EA Youth Services also received an allocation of funding. See Table 1 below:

Table 1: Funding allocated to schools & EA Services

(ii) Funding was allocated to schools, EOTAS and youth settings just prior to Christmas 2020 and they are currently identifying ways in which the funding can be spent to support the resilience, mental health and wellbeing of children. Guidance was issued to schools to inform them as to how the monies could be spent to support these areas of emotional health and wellbeing.

(iii) The guidance issued advises that this funding should be used in a way that at least 50% of the pupil and staff cohort within the setting are supported. This is with the exception of counselling funded through this initiative, where a smaller cohort of children will have received support.

It is important to note that there are also a range of other services where investment was not made directly to schools but which directly supported the emotional health and wellbeing of staff, children and young people. These include:

‘Supporting wellbeing through education restart’: an online portal of resources available to schools with information on supporting learners, leaders and staff;

Resources on the EA website to support the emotional health and wellbeing of learners and information for parents;

‘Flourishing schools’ webinars – in partnership with SBNI, these were for school principals and focused on trauma sensitive practice (Early Year, Primary and Special schools webinars have taken place, and post primary schools;

Shane Martin Webinars for School Leaders: Cultivating Resilience within School Communities. The aim of this webinar was to help support school leaders through the challenges of Restart with a specific emphasis on resilience;

EA youth service online resource ‘youth online’ where children and young people can access information, advice and support;

EA services including the Independent Counselling Service for Schools in post primary mainstream and special; Education Welfare Service; Behaviour Support and Provisions helpline; Primary Behaviour Support Team High Five newsletter; Critical Incident Response Team, Intercultural Education Service, Youth Service and Nurturing Approaches in Schools Service and the Children Looked After project team.

Wellbeing Helpline – facilitated by the Education Psychology Service, this was a temporary resource to schools to support them as they respond to a range of pupil need in school.