Fact File - Local IMPACT Teams

As the Education Authority’s Local IMPACT Team initiative concludes its first school year in operation, this fact file provides key information on its purpose, progress to date, early impact and the further investment needed to meet growing demand for specialist SEN support.

• The Education Authority’s Local IMPACT Team (LIT) initiative is concluding its first school year in operation. It has successfully established a single, needs‑led SEN support service across early years, primary and post‑primary settings, replacing eight previously separate SEN support services
• There are 28 Local IMPACT Teams across NI, working with schools to provide earlier, more tailored needs-led support to children with special educational needs. Each team includes specialists in areas such as Cognition and Learning, Autism, Language and Communication and Social, Behavioural, Emotional and Well Being Needs. These specialists support children and schools, with a strong focus on early intervention to meet needs as soon as possible.
• Since the digital portal for requests from schools opened in January 2025, LIT teams have completed support for 4,437 children. An additional 2,689 children are currently being supported (7,126 in total).
• Following Local IMPACT Team involvement with schools, over 1,500 school staff completed evaluation forms which show consistently positive responses. For example, 97.1% reported that LIT support had either a very positive (57.4%) or positive (39.7%) impact on practice within their setting.  However, we recognise that further work is required to continue developing and embedding the LIT model, and we are fully committed to progressing this.
• Implementation from September 2025 was only the starting point for the LIT initiative, which will be adapted and developed in the years ahead.
• The reform has enabled better coordination, targeting and deployment of existing specialist capacity, ensuring support is aligned more closely to identified need and reducing fragmentation across services.
• While the Department of Education and EA continue to make the case for additional funding for LITs, current budgetary pressures have constrained any expansion in capacity. As a result, no additional funding or staffing resources were available at the point of LIT's implementation. Provision for specialist support was significantly under-resourced pre-LIT and that remains the case today. The mismatch between demand for services and available capacity means too many children and schools are having to wait for support.
• EA remains committed to enhancing the available support despite the financial challenges. Targeted but limited recruitment has taken place to increase staffing resources
• EA is clear that sustained investment in LIT teams in the years ahead can enable the initiative to achieve its full potential. This will include expansion of LIT to align with the SEN provision changes that follow the recent public consultation on classroom support.