The Western Cape Education Department (WCED) and our schools, especially in the rural areas, have been working with children with Foetal Alcohol Syndrome for many years.

The WCED's support for children with FAS forms part of our education support programmes for children experiencing various barriers to learning.

The WCED assists children experiencing barriers to learning, including those who suffer from Foetal Alcohol Syndrome, in terms of White Paper 6 on Special Needs Education.

The policy emphasises the importance of inclusive education, to ensure access by learners with special education needs to mainstream schools, with appropriate support.

The department employs about 500 learner support teachers and is establishing special support units in schools where access to special schools is limited, for example, in some rural areas. These units will assist learners with special learning needs, including those with FAS.

The WCED has trained special education support teams in 80% of schools in the Western Cape so far. We expect to complete the process of training teams in the remaining schools in the very near future.

The WCED has 65 learner support specialists based in our district offices who are facilitating and coordinating programmes to provide special learner support in schools.

The department also employs 74 school psychologists to provide professional psychological support to our various programmes based in schools and our district offices.

The department is in the process of increasing the number of social workers employed by the WCED from 19 to 57 as part of our redesign project. The redesign provides for one social worker in each of our 49 districts, as well as one for each of our eight districts.

Our social workers are already working with families and communities with children with FAS, especially in rural areas. We are now expanding this support considerably.