Ms Dearbhla Holohan:

Employability was not part of this programme but, through PEACEPLUS, that element will be included in the follow-on programme to this one. Our main focus was on positive progression. The vast majority of our young people were in school and our focus was on maintaining them there.

Time and time again, the feedback we got from school leadership was that if it was not for this programme, these young people would have left. That was not the main reason we designed the programme, but we soon started to sit up and notice that it was happening consistently.

We were operating in five areas of Donegal, including in youth and partnership with Lifford-Clonleigh Resource Centre, as well as across the Border. The teachers in Donegal were saying the same thing as those in west Belfast. The parents were saying that it was much easier to get the child out of bed and to school on the morning he or she knew Strive would be around the school that day. The pressure that takes off the family that morning is a big deal, if that is what they are dealing with three or four days per week. Some young people would have attended in school and also in the evening at community sessions. Others were school age but attended entirely outside of school on an entirely community basis. However, where the connection was very much with the school, the feedback from the teachers, the leadership and the classroom assistants, who were fantastic and would have sat in on and taken part in many of the programmes, was that they could see the difference in the young people from when they were in an academic session to when they were in their Strive session. They were different people entirely.