CDNTs ‘not working’ says Cavan senator

Significant recruitment challenges part of the problem.

Senator Pauline Tully (SF) says the Children’s Disability Network Teams (CDNTs) system is not working for children. She highlighted how many parents have told her that if their child aged out of the early intervention teams in 2019, they have not received any therapy since then.

“Children who were too young to be part of those early intervention teams have had no therapy whatsoever,” she fumed this week. “I have had several meetings with school authorities and they say that whatever little support they used to get some years ago from the child development teams, they are getting absolutely no support at all now.

"This lack of support is affecting their ability to progress in life and learn in school. We are creating a large cohort of children who will become dependent adults if they do not get the support they need."

Meanwhile, CDNTs provide disability services for children under 18 who have complex needs. They include health and social care professionals working together to support the children who have been referred to them. Their aim is to support the child to thrive, grow, and learn, and to help the child’s family to learn how to best support their child.

They replaced the previous model of ‘Child Development Teams’ in 2021.Senator Tully, however, has indicated the “significant recruitment challenges” faced by CDNTs and notes a 39% overall vacancy rate across the 91 CDNTs, with nearly one in five posts remaining vacant.

“This equates to almost 530 positions waiting to be filled,” she continued before adding that “additionally, there was a reduction of 60,000 therapy hours for children in 2022, further exacerbating the issue”.

"When Deputy Naughton was Minister of State with responsibility for special education and inclusion, a school inclusion model was piloted in the CHO area 7, which was very successful.

"The NCSE has extended that into the Limerick area but it needs to be extended nationwide. The solution is getting therapy into the schools to provide support to children, teachers, and SNAs.”