Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The quality and capacity building initiative, QCBI, funded under dormant accounts, aims to take a coordinated approach to enhance capacity, knowledge and quality in prevention and early intervention for children, young people and their families. It focuses on those at risk of developing poor outcomes. At the core of the initiative is a desire to foster persistent curiosity among those working to improve the lives of children and young people in Ireland. The QCBI aims to support key groups working with children, young people and families to know what works, how it works and to provide an evidence supported approach to the application of this work. The QCBI innovation fund, with a total budget of €2 million, was developed by my Department to support prevention and early intervention innovations that build on existing data and evidence. Applications were made by organisations working with and for children and young people under one of two strands, SCALE or SEED.

The Deputy refers to the SCALE strand, with a budget of €1.2 million, which supports building on existing programmes, models or approaches which have shown promising outcomes for children and young people. The SEED strand, with a budget of €800,000 supports less proven, new and creative approaches to problems facing children and young people experiencing disadvantage in Ireland. On 4 April 2018 my Department launched the QCBI innovation fund. A total of 239 applications were received under this funding measure, of which the majority were for the SCALE strand. An assessment process followed the application period. This process was conducted by an expert evaluation panel which scored each applicant based on the transparent criteria outlined in the guidance document. Final decisions also had regard to ensuring a spread of funding across diverse organisations and geographical and disciplinary boundaries.

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