Up to 3,000 vulnerable pupils in school in NI after ‘significant’ increase

The Department of Health’s director of family and children’s policy said data has been collected since the beginning of the pandemic following a fall in the number of referrals to children’s social services.

Eilis McDaniel said in the week beginning April 6 2020, a weekly average of 646 referrals fell to 542, sparking fears of potential of harm to some children who were no longer “visible” as a result of lockdown.

She said there were 755 referrals during the week beginning February 8.

“It was one of the key reasons why we sought to get vulnerable children into schools,” she told MLAs on Stormont’s Health Committee.

“However the trend reversed rapidly – by May 11 the three-week rolling average for numbers of referrals was consistently in excess of the average number of referrals received weekly before the pandemic, and this is a trend that was repeated during the circuit-breaker, falling numbers followed by a spike, and is now being repeated during the current period of lockdown making access to school as important as it was back in March or April last year.”

Ms McDaniel said the department worked with the Department of Education to get children known to social services into school.

She said the definition of vulnerable children included those who received support before the pandemic, and those “experiencing increased pressure as a direct result of the pandemic”.

It includes youngsters known to children’s social services, those with a statement of special educational needs as well as children not known to statutory or voluntary community support service and asylum seeking and refugee children.

She said officials heard concerns that the loss of routines had led to an increase in challenging behaviour, children being disadvantaged educationally through home learning, financial hardship, isolation, and potential harm caused by increased time online in terms of gaming addiction and risk of sexual exploitation.

Ricky Irwin, from the Department of Education, told MLAs the number of vulnerable children attending school was “quite low early on, in the hundreds”, but now there are 2,000 to 3,000.

“That would be separate to children who attend special schools. Special schools have been open since the beginning of term, all the children who attend special schools would be vulnerable according to the definition because they have statement of special educational need,” he said.

“Attendance at special schools since the beginning of term has been in and around 50%, that’s around 3,000 children there as well.

“The figures are a lot healthier.”