Mr. Matt Buttery:

I alluded to one of our recommendations. As regards the CDNTs, there should be clear accountability for the provision of evidence-based parenting programmes that have been assessed by others. The What Works Network says we are evidence-based. It is not us saying we are evidence based but other people saying that independently. Workforce development should be funded so that, as we have said, there is no need to look for charitable funding. Whether the CDNTs deliver that directly or through partners, working with Tusla, the ABCs or the voluntary sector, that is for local areas to decide.

I referred to the three-legged stool earlier. That is very important. The prevention work done by Tusla is so important in this. Tusla would say, and this is on public record, that many of the cases it sees of a more severe level actually have a child with disabilities in the mix. The lack of preventative done there emphasises the need for that preventative work to be done earlier. We must find cost-effective scalable solutions.

One size does not fit all when it comes to the provision of these programmes. I will forward details of the Australian roll-out. We have a multi-level system of programmes of different levels of intensity. The key is that we, as professionals, do not tell parents they have a lot of problems so they will need the intensive programme, but that we ask them what they want to engage in, what would be helpful to them at this moment in time and what capacity do they have. Sometimes, even though there may be complex problems, the parent may have the capacity to engage in one thing and may have one burning issue they need to solve for their child, such as bedtime or toileting issues. Let us, therefore, meet parents with a level of support corresponding to where they are at.

There is a public health approach, which fits really well with the national model of parenting in Ireland. I refer to the multi-level proportionate universalism, which allows us to generate a 38% reach. If we just store these up later on in pathways, we will create a problem for ourselves whereas we should push them into the preventative space.

Programmes like Triple P can be used to train a multidisciplinary workforce to deliver them. Members may have noticed that there is no professional degree that people do to become a parenting practitioner and practitioners come from all sorts of professional disciplines. That is one of the strengths when it comes to the Deputy's question of how we ensure provision. Whether someone is a speech and language therapist, a family support worker, a psychologist or a nurse, whatever his or her background, if someone is working with a family, there is absolutely no reason we cannot upskill that person to deliver this programme. The Triple P programme could be and is delivered by the existing workforce. We can think carefully about where we position programmes, so whether it is in the voluntary sector and whether we are engaging with parent facilitators to support us as well. These models provide real flexibility to think about what works best with the local resources we have in our areas.