Ms Amy Carey:

I thank the committee for having us here today to talk about our work and the issues that our young people face. We are based in the Liberties in Dublin and we are a wraparound youth work organisation. We run a range of programmes including after-school and in-school programmes, youth work, youth justice, street work, programmes in prison and a social enterprise. Our model is one of long-term consistent intervention. We aim to provide support to the young people most in need in our community from the age of five right through to their mid-20s. A young person starts in our after-schools and is supported right through their primary education, then through the transition into secondary school through our in-school work and our UBU youth work team, which continues through their teens and into their 20s. Young people who leave school early can be supported through The Yard social enterprise and young people involved in criminal behaviour are supported through our range of justice programmes. Our model strives to provide somewhere for everyone.

One of our core values in Solas Project is love. We believe that every young person deserves to be loved. We do not give up on any young person. We are relentless in our pursuit of building long-term relationships and persistently target young people who are seen as hard to reach. No matter how challenging a young person is seen as, our wraparound model means that we are known as a place for everyone. A young person is not labelled for coming to Solas Project.

Last year I spoke to this committee as part of the Dublin 8 After School Alliance. We were advocating for the restoration of funding for after-school projects in disadvantaged communities. Sadly the situation has since been exacerbated. Young people under six are supported through early years supports and those aged ten and up are supported through youth work funding streams. However, at-risk children from age six to ten have no statutory funding to support them in their communities. Waiting to offer a young person support until they turn ten is too late. We all too often see young people under ten who have experienced significant trauma in their lives. Some have already disengaged from school and are being drawn into antisocial behaviour. Our inability to offer them the supports they need will inevitably lead to further cost to the State in the years ahead.

A key part of our approach as an organisation is working with schools. We run programmes in schools supporting young people through that transition into secondary school. In addition to the direct impact of the programmes that we run, they also ensure that every young person in the community knows Solas Project. It enables us to identify those who are high-risk in our community and offer them additional supports. Our youth work in schools is completely privately funded. Under the UBU rules, our youth work team is not allowed to work in schools as it is wrongly seen as double funding. We are part of a collective of UBU projects petitioning to allow up to 10% of our youth workers' time to take place in schools.

Finally, being based in the south-west inner city, an area experiencing significant gentrification, we face the additional challenge of space with a complete lack of suitable youth work space in the area. Our community is categorised as very disadvantaged due to high levels of poverty, substance abuse and youth crime. We are passionate about breaking the cycle of poverty and believe that youth work is central to this. However, the absence of a safe space limits the depth of our work. Historically the young people of our community have been overlooked and we believe our young people deserve a safe space where they can be supported to reach their full potential.

We are calling for three things today - funding for earlier intervention with high-risk six- to ten-year-olds; for the UBU programme to allow 10% of youth work time to be spent in schools; and for support in developing a designated youth work premises for the young people of the south-west inner city.