Special needs workers plea for priority in jabs and tests
‘We need to be protected in the schools’
IT IS ‘imperative’ that special needs teachers and assistants get serial testing, vaccine priority and adequate PPE, according to one school worker.
Jesslyn Henry from Coolock, Dublin, said that a lot of her colleagues in special schools are working with vulnerable children and the staff need to be protected.
She said the workers can’t socially distance because they have to do tasks such as washing the pupils who often do not wear masks because of their condition.
Special schools were due to open on January 6 along with mainstream schools. This was deferred to January 11. However, due to concerns around high transmission levels of Covid-19 in the community, this did not happen. Then they were scheduled to reopen on January 21, along with special classes in mainstream schools.
However, the Department of Education said that despite ‘consistent, frequent and ongoing’ engagement with representative bodies for educational staff, plans to reopen were
shelved due to a ‘lack of cooperation from key staff unions in the primary sector’.
The Irish National Teachers’ Organisation and Fórsa – which represents Special Needs Assistants – said the department failed to assure staff that schools are safe.
Education Minister Norma Foley said this week ‘intensive engagement’ is under way but no reopening date has yet been set.
Jesslyn, 39, who has been an assistant for nine years, works in a mainstream secondary school in Dublin with a specialist autism class and wants to get back to work. The school has closed in lockdown.
‘The students I work with are a mixture of students on the spectrum and/or ADHD with behavioural difficulties,’ she said.
‘They require hands-on care to assist with some of their behaviours, help to keep them on task, with organisation and social skills.
‘My biggest concern about returning to work is… that I live with a very vulnerable parent who would be in the very high-risk category.
‘While we absolutely do our best to stay safe in school, it’s not possible to socially distance from my students and, in the main, they do not wear face coverings due to their sensory needs.’
She said adequate PPE is vital for a safe return: ‘SNAs, particularly those in special schools and classes, have a very similar job to healthcare workers, they do procedures such as peg feeding, catheterisation, tracheostomy care, washing, feeding, changing etc but yet, until this week, medical grade masks were not being supplied for SNAs.
‘Our union was supplying these to some of our schools. SNAs, particularly in special schools and classes, need to be given adequate PPE, and should be prioritised for vaccination with healthcare staff and provided with serial testing.
‘Serial testing is not only important for staff, it’s imperative to keep our most vulnerable students healthy.’
Jesslyn spoke out as Special Education Minister Josepha Madigan had to apologise last week for describing students in mainstream schools as ‘normal’ compared to special needs pupils. This week Ms Madigan linked their situation to Mother and Baby Homes.
‘Ms Madigan has made some major blunders over the past week. Her use of the word “normal” in terms of children was awful and hurt many SNAs, parents and young people. Her comparison of the current situation with Mother and Baby Homes was nasty and vile,’ Jesslyn said.
Meanwhile, Linda O’Sullivan, a Dublin-based SNA, said she and colleagues are relieved that their views have been taken on board. ‘We want to be with the children, but we want to do that safely because we work with the most at risk and the most vulnerable children,’ she told parenting website Rollercoaster.ie.
‘I also work in a Deis school, so we’re highly aware that children are at home in all situations, not all children are safe at home, but we also needed our concerns listened to, which our unions did listen to us.
‘Our point of view was that it wasn’t safe for any of us to return until commnity transmission is low.’
Ms O’Sullivan also criticised the Government for not speaking to staff from the outset. ‘They went ahead and announced two dates and gave parents false hope… that their children would return to school when really all they needed to do was sit down with stakeholders and come up with a good plan – but they didn’t’
‘We wash and feed the pupils in our care’
‘We want to be safe around children’