Minister O’Gorman publishes Introductory Guidelines to Support the Meaningful Inclusion of Autistic Children in Early Learning and Care, School-Age Childcare and Childminding Settings – 11 October 2024

Roderic O’ Gorman, Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, today published Introductory Guidelines to Support the Inclusion of Autistic Children in Early Learning and Care, School-Age Childcare and Childminding Settings. The Guidelines are for early years educators, school-age childcare practitioners and childminders who are currently working to support the meaningful inclusion of autistic children in early learning and care, school-age childcare and childminding settings. They form part of a wider suite of universal and targeted supports under the Access and Inclusion Model (AIM) which have been designed to ensure children with a disability and additional needs can access and participate in the ECCE programme and early learning and
care settings more broadly. The Guidelines fulfil a commitment in the recently launched National Autism Innovation Strategy, which aims to address the bespoke challenges and barriers facing autistic people and to improve understanding and accommodation of autism within society and across the
public system. Each year 2,735 services benefit from AIM supports.

Public Consultation on a National Plan for Irish Language provision in Early Learning and Care (ELC) and School-Age Childcare (SAC) is now closed

Following on from the launch of the public consultation on a national plan for Irish language provision in Early Learning and Care (ELC) and School-Age Childcare (SAC), on 06/06, DCEDIY are encouraging the ELC and SAC sector, early years educators, practitioners, and parents to engage with the consultation through completing the online survey and /or to express their interest in participating in the focus groups (please contact fiosru@mic.ul.ie)

All information on the consultation is available here.

Táimid ag lorg do thacaíocht leis an gcomhairliúchán poiblí ar Phlean Náisiúnta do Sholáthar Gaeilge san Fhoghlaim agus Cúram na Luath-Óige (ELC) agus sa Chúram Leanaí d’Aois Scoile (SAC).

An féidir libh aird a chuir ar an gcomhairliúchán le suíomhanna, na hoideoirí luathbhlianta agus grúpaí tuismitheoirí chun páirt a ghlacadh sna ghrúpaí fócais (i bpearsan nó ar líne, léirigh spéis le fiosru@mic.ul.ie ) agus /nó an suirbhé a líonadh isteach.

Tá gach eolas ar fáil anseo

Cóiméad do shúile amach do na fógraí agus roinn iad ar na meáin sóisialta, chomh minic agus is féidir.

Tusla Guidance Documents and Resources

Tusla have developed a guidance documents and resources for everyone working in early years services – please find a range of guidance documents on Tusla’s resource page along with report documentation on ResourcesTusla – Child and Family Agency

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National Síolta Aistear Initiative- CPD

The learning experiences in this CPD have been developed to support early years practitioners in becoming familiar with some of the resources on the Aistear Síolta Practice Guide. Please note that you can view and edit the learning experiences with Adobe Acrobat only. You can read how to do this by clicking this link here.

To read more, please click here.

Each learning experience:

Contains viewing and reading materials to support you in your professional role working with Aistear: the Early Childhood Curriculum Framework and Síolta: the National Quality Framework for Early Childhood Education
Is linked to Aistear’s themes and Síolta’s standards
Contains a section at the end for key reflections on learning and possible future actions.

If you are not already familiar with the Aistear Síolta Practice Guide you might like to begin by clicking on the learning experience here: Introduction to the Practice Guide.

If you are already familiar with the Aistear Síolta Practice Guide, you can go directly to the learning experiences by following this link http://www.aistearsiolta.ie/en/CPD/ and scrolling to the bottom of the page.