Prof. Siobhán O'Neill brands any failure to support children with special educational needs a ‘disgrace’ - video Dailymotion

Prof. Siobhán O'Neill brands any failure to support children with special educational needs a ‘disgrace’

Transcript

00:00 The concern that I have for families with children with special educational needs that come into my office

00:04 and I take them to meet the support groups, they are exhausted, they're fighting for everything

00:10 and even if they're the same age as us, to be blunt, they look 20 years older than me,

00:15 they're the same age as me, they just look absolutely worn out and I'm just wondering

00:19 what concerns do you have for their mental health going forward because I think it's at a cliff edge

00:24 right now. I've never seen it as bad with people come through and looking for support from my office.

00:28 I couldn't find words powerful enough to communicate. It's a disgrace, it's appalling,

00:34 it's shameful, it's something that does need to be addressed and I think we talk about the impact

00:40 on those young people and every aspect of their life and their mental health and their education

00:44 and their carers and their families and the impact even in the classroom setting where you

00:51 have children whose needs are not being met, how that then ripples across the whole classroom and

00:56 affects everybody and affects the teachers and the schools who know that they could do better if they

01:01 had the resources to do this. So I am just, this is an absolute priority, you know, when you think

01:07 of priorities, this has got to be near the top. It really does. So yeah, it's fundamental and the

01:16 numbers are increasing, you know, and we have to accept that and deal with that and I was very

01:21 concerned about the idea that the pandemic had been associated with that surge. So I'm going

01:25 off to look now at the data on that, just to see what interventions would work there and if there's

01:30 any nuances there that we need to be aware of. So I'll be returning hopefully to committee to talk

01:37 about things like that but yeah, let's get this sorted and it's great that we have a committee and

01:41 hopefully with yourselves and the Minister we can do something there.