Mr. Pádraig O'Donovan:

The strengthening families programme is an evidence-based family skills training programme that involves parents and young people for three hours once a week over 14 weeks. This programme aims to reduce risk factors around alcohol and drug use, mental health challenges and criminal behaviour. It does this by increasing family strengths, developing young people’s social competencies and improving positive parenting skills. The SFP has been identified as a programme that delivers a range of proven benefits for families and young people because of the unique way in which it engages parents and young people together.

The programme structure is that families enjoy a meal for the first hour of each weekly session and then separate into their respective groups - parents, teen or child - for the next hour for a skills based workshop. The family are brought back together for the final hour to practise some of the skills they have learned. Transport and child care for young people are provided where practicable and financially possible in order to reduce barriers and enable families to fully participate in the programme.

The strengthening famiilies programme was introduced to Ireland in 2007. The National strengthening famiilies programme Council of Ireland was established to ensure adherence to the fidelity of the programme and best practice guidelines, to provide training and to bring together co-ordinators and trainers to share their knowledge and experience. Since 2007, in excess of 1,500 families have graduated from the programme. This is the number of families who have linked in with the council. There are other programmes but these numbers are not recorded. The council is not funded and exists only because a number of key agencies support it with staff and time.

The strengthening famiilies programme, SFP, has been delivered in County Kildare since 2008 and is co-ordinated by the Foróige drug prevention and education initiative. Delivery involves a number of statutory, community and voluntary partners, including social work, drugs education, youth and probation services, family resource centres and the County Kildare Leader partnership. This year, the first independent evaluation of SFP in Kildare was commissioned with a particular focus on 2014-2016. The results of the evaluation highlighted significant improvements in family communication and relationships, child behaviour, parental competencies and confidence. This also leads to reduced service utilisation by families. Families reported being better able to deal with problems and to spend more time together as a family. Some parents also reported increased trust, self-esteem and social skills among children. Parents indicated an improvement in school attendance and behaviour in school. The following is a quotation from one parent interviewed for the evaluation: "The teachers couldn't get over the change in him. Before, he had to sit on his own.....but now he's interacting back in the class."

The strengthening famiilies programme has been identified as a fit for families in cases where schools are facing challenges with young people who have very little structure in their lives, which may be due to inconsistent parenting and family experiences. SFP has the ability to bring about positive change for whole families rather than just focusing on the one identified problem child. Parents relationships with schools also improves as they gain useful skills and confidence to engage better with teachers allowing for a unified approach to working with the young person. Schools are very enthusiastic about the programme, which is highly regarded by principals and teaching staff who see first-hand the benefits to pupils and parents of engagement in the programme.