Ms Karen McCarthy:

Outcome one of the policy framework is that children are active and healthy. The CCCs support early years services to promote children's health and well-being using the national curriculum framework, Aistear. This is achieved through a partnership approach with the early years service providers and other stakeholders. CCCs also support early years services settings to deliver experiences to children that build on development protective factors, such as emotional resilience, a sense of self-esteem and good social networks. In addition the CCCs deliver the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, EDI, training courses under the Access and Inclusion model. These courses commenced in November 2016. The CCCs will have delivered 80 courses to nearly 1,000 providers in the first half of 2017.

Outcome two is about children achieving full potential in all areas of learning and development. CCCs work with early years services to ensure that the quality of the educational experience delivered supports very young children to achieve the best foundation in learning and development. This includes supporting the implementation of Síolta, the National Quality Framework, through our Síolta mentor supports and participation currently in an Aistear pilot which is running in many CCC areas. During 2016, 56 of our staff completed a Síolta Training of Trainers and are now actively implementing Síolta with early years services across the country. The introduction of the ECCE programme better known as the free preschool year in 2009 was a milestone and represented an important step in the provision of universal early childhood care and education to children aged between three and six years. We support the administration of this programme. In 2015-2016, 4,178 early years services were contracted to offer the ECCE programme nationally. Approximately 95% of eligible children participate in ECCE and have done so from the outset. 2016 saw the launch of the access and inclusion model which provides a range of supports designed to ensure that children with disabilities can access the ECCE programme. We play a crucial role in this model in respect of information and supports to both parents and early years services.

Outcome three is that children are safe and protected from harm. The Government commitment to Children First has been evidenced over recent years with focus on the implementation of sectoral plans. The CCCs have been at the forefront of this for the early years sector. We have responsibility for the roll-out of the Always Children First child protection and welfare training programme to early years settings with a stated aim of ensuring that relevant staff from every service throughout the country receive accredited child protection and welfare training. The roll-out of this training is co-ordinated and delivered by CCCs with over 14,000 early years practitioners have completed the training to date.

Outcome four is that children have economic security and opportunity. The CCCs work with early years services to support access for children whose emotional, social and intellectual development may be challenged through experiences of poverty and social exclusion. This is achieved through the implementation of the community child care subvention schemes in early years services who provide for our most vulnerable children and families. In addition, the CCCs promote and administer a suite of supports that enable parents to avail of subsidised child care to facilitate their labour market participation and education and training opportunities. The CCCs further support the community providers regarding sustainable service provision, including financial advice and individualised plans for their delivery of service. The CCCs have well-established systems in place to provide this type of support, for example, the ongoing work with community services to address the issues of reliance on community employment, CE, participants. This work involves intensive one-to-one supports for those services identified with this issue. This has involved CCC staff teams conducting indepth business analysis reviews to support the service to work towards sustainability and operation of their businesses without having to rely on CE participants to meet their regulatory requirements of staff-child ratios and qualification requirements. A total of €1 million in funding has been allocated by the Government to support these services and to date, 47 services have received funding under for recruitment and human resources supports and are now working with their CCCs to submit for once-off transitional funding.

Outcome five is about children being connected, respected and contributing. CCCs support this outcome through their work supporting equality, diversity and inclusion with the delivery of the access and inclusion model. The activities being delivered by CCCs under this model go a long way to support this national outcome and include the delivery of the EDI training noted earlier and supports to develop inclusion polices within each early years services.

The CCCs acknowledge the Government's continued investment in the early years sector and have welcomed the opportunity to be part of its fast and expanding evolution. It is also important to acknowledge cross-party support where party manifestos recognise the need for early years investment to support working parents and the positive effect that quality early years experiences can have on a child's development. Research has stated that the early years of a child's life has an impact on their lifelong learning and development. It is a time when rapid growth and development occur. This sector is the first rung on the education ladder and it is, therefore, critical that investment continues to grow in supporting children and their families. This investment provides quality foundations for children with the hope of reducing interventions in later years. With our success to date, we also welcome the opportunity to have a continued role as the local delivery mechanism for the Department of Children and Youth Affairs and the opportunity to maintain and build on the important relationships that we have established over the last 16 years. We thank members for their attention and welcome any questions you may have.