To ask the Minister of Health to detail why RISE NI is not supporting children placed in specialist provisions in mainstream schools.

The Regional Integrated Support for Education (RISE) teams received funding across the 5 Trusts in 2007 as part of the Children & Young People’s Package 2006-2008, following a report from Peter Hain, to tackle inequalities and address barriers to learning.

The RISE teams are a multi-professional health service that support all mainstream pre-school and primary educational settings in Northern Ireland up to and including children enrolled in Key Stage 1 (P4). These teams deliver a transdisciplinary model of support, involving Speech and Language Therapists, Occupational Therapists, Physiotherapists, Behavioural Therapists, Clinical Psychologists and Therapy Assistants.

This service works directly in the mainstream school environment to support the holistic needs of children by promoting a positive and integrated service around the needs of the child, family and school.

The RISE service aims to achieve the best outcomes for children, parents, teachers and schools through the delivery of a tiered model which includes Universal, Targeted and Specialist support. This support has been shown to be effective in improving outcomes for children, young people, families and educational settings. The teams work closely with schools, the children and their families in a preventative manner, to assist in addressing needs which are likely to impact on the child’s learning and access to the educational curriculum.

The RISE model has two key aims:

To reduce educational underachievement by optimising children’s

access to learning within the educational environment.

To foster health, wellbeing and social inclusion and improve the

life chances of children.

Given the preventative focus adopted by RISE from the outset, it was agreed that this service would operate within the mainstream classes - both in the nursery and primary school sectors. The range of Specialist Provisions within mainstream schools (SPIMS) had and continue to have access to the diverse range of RISE training and strategies developed at a universal level. Children attending SPIMS who have a Statement of Special Educational Needs (SEN), and who require specialist support from health and social care practitioners are predominantly supported by core community services. This approach to SPIMS was deemed most appropriate at the time RISE was first established to ensure the wide range of health and social care needs were met that existed in the child’s home and school environment, and as such required very close working with the child’s parents/carers.

In addition to the initial funding provided to establish RISE in 2007, non-recurrent funding was provided by DE to the 5 Trusts under their Emotional Health and Wellbeing in Education Framework to extend RISE into mainstream classes Key Stage 2 (KS2) - i.e. from Primary 5 - 7.

This expansion aligned with the overarching principles of the pre-existing RISE programme, however, had a specific focus on supporting children with established social and emotional behavioural needs. It included the delivery of universal training, targeted advice alongside group and whole-class interventions. Similar to the original RISE models SPIMS for this age range could avail of universal training and strategies for the reasons indicated above. However, due to challenges with recruitment underpinned by an uncertain, non-recurrent funding position - this expansion is currently only available within the SHSCT area.