Page 1414 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 6 May 2015
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Going to the Education and Training Directorate website to look at the background of this, it says on there:
The School Youth Health Nurse aims to promote positive health outcomes for young people and their families through the delivery of accessible, acceptable, appropriate and culturally respectful primary health care in high schools.
They provide the opportunity for young people, their parents and members of the school community to access a health professional in the school setting. This can be for matters relating to health and well-being and includes acting as a curriculum resource for staff.
They help support school communities to adopt a whole-of-school … approach to address contemporary health and social issues facing young people and their families. The goal is to enable young people to make a safe and healthy transition into adulthood.
These are all aims I am sure we can support and can see value in, particularly in mainstream education settings. But the issues of student safety, level of care, scope of practice and appropriateness of this in special schools seem to require more community discussion, review and evaluation to ensure they meet the mark.
Rather than support a motion that recommends nursing staff at every school no matter what, the Greens would prefer to take a much more focused approach of actually ensuring that we are meeting the needs of students and teachers in terms of providing support for children and young people who have medical needs. It seems nonsensical to actually provide a level of nurse staffing to a school and have that person underutilised and sit around twiddling their thumbs. It is also untenable that children with medical needs are not fully supported in their schools. However, that full support may take different forms depending on the medical needs, depending on the child, their age, their teacher and the risk associated with their conditions.
I am mindful that we need tailored solutions when we are planning for the care and education needs of any child. So I would prefer to see a model that assesses and ensures that each child’s needs are being met, while not just assuming needs, than provide a level of staffing that is not required.
Going forward, what we need is a framework for special schools that stands the test of time, parental engagement, staff discussion and, most importantly, the changing needs of a student with a disability. What we do not need is this constant debate in the chamber of the Assembly on matters that relate to individual students’ medical needs. We do need to be able to move beyond that.
I do believe that Mr Doszpot has the best interests of students at heart on this matter and I appreciate his longstanding commitment to people with disability. But I do not necessarily agree with him on the proposed policy approach that is in his motion today and I fear that it is perhaps taking a sledgehammer approach to a nuanced and complex issue.
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