Six primary schools have appealed for financial support to secure the long-term future of a unique project that sees trainee therapists working with children in their schools and developing therapeutic programmes for them.
The six Limerick city schools serve children living in areas that have the highest rates of social deprivation nationally.
This week they marked the first anniversary of the Health Alliance for Practice-based Professional Education and Engagement.
The 'Happee' project is a partnership between the schools, the University of Limerick, and local disability services which sees student physiotherapists, speech and language therapists, and occupational therapists complete 10-week placements in the schools where they observe and work with the children, under the supervision of fully trained clinicians.
Amid an acute shortfall in therapeutic services nationally, those behind the collaboration say it is enabling therapists and teachers to develop bespoke programmes to support vulnerable children, and to do so cheaply. Those involved have described its impact as "transformational".
In First Class at Our Lady of Lourdes evidence of the transformation is clear to see. By midday on Monday the children had stacked away their chairs and tables and were lying down or sitting cross-legged on colourful mats laid out across the classroom floor.
As teacher Megan Kiely read to the children and they discussed the topic of astronauts and space some children rolled around, or rocked themselves, or stretched their legs or arms up into the air.
This school, along with others in the project, caters to a cohort of children many of whom have already experienced multiple traumas in their lives, including bereavement including through suicide, domestic violence, addiction, homelessness and separation from parents.
When the Happee project got under way one of the first things that therapists told teachers was that many of the children were simply unable to sit quietly on chairs and could not be expected to do so. They needed to be able to move about in order to be able to regulate themselves.
"As teachers we have a curriculum to teach and we are focused on our timetables and our literacy lessons and our numeracy lessons and we expect the children to sit and listen while we teach but what [the clinicians] have shown us is that we were trying to teach children who were not ready to learn, because they were not regulated, and what they told us has been transformative," Deputy Principal at Our Lady of Lourdes primary school Mary Maguire told RTÉ News.
Adopting the position they find most comfortable and being able to move about as they please, is helping the children to self-regulate and this is freeing their minds up to focus on their learning. The school has learned that this is also having a beneficial physical effect. Lying on their stomachs for instance - a position that many of the children favour - strengthens a child's core.
Our Lady of Lourdes has now introduced mats for part of the day across all of its junior classes, and the idea is catching on. Mary Maguire says other schools are now coming in to observe it because they want to achieve the same for their pupils.
This is just one of the more striking outcomes. But at an event to mark the first anniversary of the Happee project teachers, UL students, parent representatives and therapists outlined many more.
Therapists have picked up on weaknesses that individual children were displaying that had escaped the notice of teachers and parents. A child who seemed constantly tired for example was found to have a weakness in their lower spine. Discoveries like this have allowed for early action to be taken.
"It is transformational for children and families in the schools because they are getting access to services that they otherwise won’t get," says Maura Adshead, Head of Community Engagement at UL.
"Many of them are on waiting lists. Some of them have needs that had not yet been identified. The schools are developing programmes which are lasting even beyond our [UL] students’ participation so they have changed the way they behave, for the benefit of the children."
The fact that the children are now receiving therapies in their school is also a gamechanger for families, she says.
"That makes a big difference because a parent doesn’t have to take a day off work, lose pay, they don’t have to try and take two buses to go to a clinic that they don’t know where it is. The child is not being pulled out of school. They are receiving help in a place where they feel comfortable and safe, and parents trust the school, they trust teachers in a way that they don’t always trust clinicians that they haven’t seen or don’t know."
The project has brought benefits for the participating UL students too. Physiotherapy student Niall Duffy is one of them. He loved his last year’s 10-week school placement so much that this year he has continued to work at the school, as a volunteer.
"I really enjoyed the work that we were doing with the children... helping develop their movement and co-ordination skills. I could see what the kids were getting from it, and we learned a lot", he said.
State therapeutic services are provided in Limerick through St Gabriel’s Foundation. Its CEO Treasa McAuliffe says the city’s disability network teams are among the three most under-resourced in the country, in spite of the fact that the level of social deprivation in Limerick city is higher than anywhere else nationally.
It is clinicians at St Gabriel’s who supervise the students while they are on placement in the schools. Treasa McAuliffe says the initiative has boosted morale among clinicians working at the service.
"Clinicians are dealing with long waiting lists, they are trying their best to provide a service to families, and they feel really bad that they can’t provide the services that the families really need. But working on a project like this they get to see positives, they get to see improvements and they get to see good outcomes which is really important for recruitment and retention," she said.
While the Happee programme is set to continue this year, with a new set of UL students due to begin 10-week placements, the schools and everyone else involved are keen to secure its long-term future.
They are hoping that state authorities such as the Departments of Education, Health, and Social Protection, as well as Limerick City and County Council will step in with ongoing financial support. They say the long-term benefits for the children and the wider community are incalculable.
This week the first anniversary of the project was marked by an event at which the Our Lady of Lourdes choir sang, a cake was cut, and a panel discussion explained the far-reaching benefits of the scheme to an invited audience.
To the side of the room a senior official from the Department of Education sat quietly. He took notes assiduously as he listened to the panel contributors. Everyone who knew who he was was hoping that this was a good sign.
"We have traumatised children coming to school every day and a lot of my time is spent filling out forms for them to go on waiting lists," Mary Maguire told attendees. "But this project is making a huge difference. It really is an agent for change and it needs to be sustained."
