Multiagency Support Teams
Private Members’ Business
3:30 pm
John McCallister (UUP)
: I am grateful to colleagues for taking part in the debate and for the remarks made. I begin by paying tribute to my colleague Mr Beggs. He is no stranger to campaigning or to getting better outcomes for children and young people. He has led on issues like this for many years and, no doubt, will continue to campaign tirelessly on these issues and, where he sees good practice, try to roll it out. That is the basis of today’s debate and why we have been passionate about putting it on the agenda. We want to make the case for rolling out in all areas the good practice that we see being carried out in some areas, and see where we can pick up and make sure that no children fall between the gaps in our services and are left behind.
I agree with Mr Beggs that it would be great for that to be rolled out to all schools. The school is the one place that we know catches all children. Notwithstanding that, I will come later to Ms Gildernew’s remarks about wanting to have this happen upstream to allow intervention at an earlier stage, which my party supports. We have always been keen on interventions being made at as early a stage as possible across the board.