Parents refute HSE claims over availability of therapies in special schools
Due In Children Being 'discriminated With Lack Needs Cork To Against Additional Are Services' Of
Parents of children with additional needs in Cork have questioned HSE assertions that the children have access to vital therapies in special schools.
They say therapists such as psychologists and occupational therapists were removed from schools under the HSE’s Progressing Disability Services model, which reconfigured disability services, but many children were left with virtually no access to therapies under the new system.
In 2022, Minister for Disability Anne Rabbitte had promised that therapists would be returned to special schools, and to Carrigaline Community Special School, which as a new school under the Cork Education and Training Board had never been given any therapists.
However, parents of children with disabilities at the school said that there have been no therapists there since it opened in September 2021.
Parents of children at Rochestown Community Special School said they too are in the same situation, with no therapists since that school opened.
The HSE told the that in Carrigaline Community Special School, the Brothers of Charity Southern Services is providing 35 hours of therapy, made up of occupational therapy, psychology, social work, and speech and language therapy.
In Rochestown Community Special School, Enable Ireland is providing more than 35 hours in occupational therapy, physiotherapy, psychology, social work, and speech and language therapy, the HSE said.
Parents dispute this, however. They say that any limited therapeutic provision in these schools has just been for oversight, and their children have received no therapeutic interventions.
Children in Cork are being actively discriminated against due to the continued lack of services, one parent in the group Cork Parents Unite, which campaigns for better children's disability services, told a meeting between parents and the .
“The HSE is running the show with no accountability to anyone,” said one parent who asked not to be named.
“It says therapists are being provided but they’re not.
Claire Lenihan, whose six-year-old son attends Rochestown Community Special School, said: “The HSE told Anne Rabbitte that therapists were being appointed. But there are none in Rochestown.
“Therapists need to be in special schools so they can build relationships with the children.
“And if there’s a crisis it can be dealt with quickly, or a crisis can be averted by early intervention. No child can learn when they’re stressed.
“We were told we’d have therapists in September 2023 but that has not happened.”
Although therapists — a speech and language therapist and an occupational therapist — were brought in for two days at Carrigaline Community Special School, they only guided staff and did not provide therapy, parents said. They were borrowed from the local Children's Disability Network Team so were only for four of 48 children whose home address was registered in that area, they said.
Niamh O’Grady, whose son attended Carrigaline Community Special School said: “Our children are the dismissed. The State would not be able to dismiss other groups with such impunity.
“So we’re stuck. Where do we even go for help?
“It is utterly life-changing when you realise your child will never be typical, may never leave home. Then you have to navigate the disability system, deal with all the acronyms, and you get no help.
“Disability services should be delivered on a rights-based model, not a charity-based model.”