Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Since 2007 the Young Ballymun project has built a collective community plan for children's services, with 30 active partners across the health, education, early years and community sectors. This project has been very successful in helping to improve the lot of children in this area and is a best practice model that should be rolled out across the State. Ballymun has suffered and continues to suffer from disadvantage and child poverty, but it has made significant strides to deal with these issues, in particular since the inception of Young Ballymun in 2007.

Since then almost €20 million has been invested in rolling out a strategy to address the causes and effects of child poverty. This was made possible by the generosity and foresight of Atlantic Philanthropies and their partnership with the Department of Health and the Office of the Minister for Children, now the Department of Children and Youth Affairs.

In December 2009 the Young Ballymun plan moved into full operation, investing in primary care health services, early years providers, primary schools and family and community services in a shared vision to improve learning and well-being outcomes for children in Ballymun. Working with teachers, principals and parents, literacy outcomes in primary schools have significantly improved. An analysis of school literacy test data has shown that the number of children in need of learning support halved from 2007 to 2015, and the proportion of children with reading difficulty decreased by nearly a third. In spite of the adverse economic conditions, the banking crisis, the recession and major reductions in public investment and public services, the plan has been, and is being, successfully implemented and the outcomes are remarkable. Improved outcomes for children in Ballymun have been measured with high levels of literacy improvement across primary schools, improved child social and emotional development and, crucially, measurable improvements in parenting know-how and in the mental health of parents. These measures have laid the foundation stones for long-term social regeneration and breaking the cycle of poverty. To achieve real change for communities experiencing social disadvantage, the realisation that this a long-term project is essential. However, extra funding is needed to complete the programme.

Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I am very pleased to join with Deputy Ellis in this initiative. Deputy Ellis and I are long-time representatives of the Ballymun area, but we also work very closely with public, national and local representatives from all parties who are absolutely committed to the Young Ballymun model. We have long experience of the success of that model and are very conscious of the scale, depth and complexity of disadvantage within an area like Ballymun, a town of 18,000 people. It is important to bear in mind that huge scale. We are very conscious that since 2007 Young Ballymun has made an enormous difference to the lives of many children and their parents within Ballymun. That is because it is not a single project but an area-based change programme that works very closely with everybody involved in children's lives: parents, public health nurses, preschool leaders, primary school teachers and everybody who interacts with children. That is the secret of its success.

There are some 4,000 children, parents and service providers involved in the Young Ballymun project this year alone. It has been hugely successful and has made an enormous difference to the well-being of children and families in the area. That is why we are so disappointed that funding is running out for this project. All of us, at a political level, met with the Department of Children and Youth Affairs. We made the case and were told that consideration would be given to extending the funding to allow Young Ballymun to continue for another year. We were very disappointed when the Department came up with €1.2 million and split it three ways, even though the Young Ballymun project is on an entirely different scale from the other two projects that received funding. This project is supported by many different people, from Danny McCoy to Sr. Stanislaus Kennedy, Tony Fahey and Fr. Peter McVerry. This is a tried and tested programme. We want to retain it, and it needs to be expanded to other areas. That model is there and can be used. I ask the Minister, please, not to close it down.

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I appreciate Deputies Ellis and Shortall's mention of this important issue. I have read some of the opinions of the very esteemed people Deputy Shortall identified and, as she is well aware, I watched the origins as well as some of the earlier growth of Young Ballymun and its impact. I welcome the opportunity to explain the state of play from the Department's perspective. I indicated earlier to Deputy Shortall that I have spent some time reviewing these issues in the early days of my ministry.

The area-based childhood programme, ABC, runs from 2013 to 2017 and is a prevention and early intervention initiative jointly funded by the Department of Children and Youth Affairs and Atlantic Philanthropies to the amount of €29.7 million. The aim of the ABC programme is to test and evaluate prevention and early intervention approaches to improve outcomes for children and families living in 13 areas of disadvantage in Ireland. Young Ballymun is one of the 13 organisations participating in the ABC programme, and was allocated €5 million of the overall €29.7 million ABC budget - the highest recipient of programme funding. Prior to the ABC programme, Young Ballymun received €15 million under the prevention and early intervention programme, PEIP, which ran from 2007 to 2013.

In respect of the need for additional funding which the Deputies raised, three organisations participated in the PEIP, moved into the ABC programme at an early stage and were due to conclude operations in mid-2016. Deputy Shortall indicated that the Department has committed additional funding of €400,000 to each of the three organisations: Young Ballymun, the childhood development initiative in TaIlaght and the Preparing for Life programme in Darndale. I acknowledge what she has said about how disappointing that amount of money is for Young Ballymun, but this base level funding-----

Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

It is on a different scale.

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I hear the Deputy. This base level funding will go towards aligning the completion of programme activities for all 13 ABC grant recipients to August 2017. In the meantime, the funders and the three local sites are exploring further funding arrangements to ensure continued service provision. It will also ensure that Young Ballymun can inform the national evaluation of the ABC programme, which is extremely critical, prioritise those aspects of its service delivery that demonstrate compelling evidence of significant positive impact, and progress the transition of these programmes and services into the mainstream locally. Young Ballymun has welcomed this additional funding and has indicated that it will submit a board-approved proposal outlining a prioritised programme provision in the coming weeks.

A broad range of interventions have been tried out across all 13 ABC sites. Rather than rolling out a model for any one particular ABC site across the State, a strategic approach will be taken whereby interventions supported by the best evidence of impact will be identified and the lessons from these disseminated. Several evaluations are continuing which will inform this approach. First there is a national evaluation of all the sites participating in the ABC programme, conducted by the Centre for Effective Services. Second, alongside that national evaluation, many sites are conducting local evaluations of their work. Very promising evaluations are already available from other sites in the original PEIP. In the case of Young Ballymun, as part of the funding arrangement under the ABC programme, the funders requested that it develop further its evidence base supporting its range of interventions. In response, Young Ballymun commissioned a performance story report in 2015 to assemble an evidence base to support its work, produced a draft report and assembled a jury of international experts to review it. They concluded that there was evidence of change in a range of outcome areas in Ballymun and acknowledged the contributions of the programme and other initiatives to these changes. It also concluded that some areas of evidence required strengthening before firmer conclusions could be drawn. I want to ensure that the lessons from effective interventions under the ABC programme are harnessed and brought into the mainstream of existing services nationally. Officials in the Department are working to ensure coherent and strategic next steps for prevention and early intervention in Ireland, and this work will be given added impetus given the range of programme for Government commitments. I hope to have that well advanced in the coming months and to have a clearer view of the next steps. We are considering lots of different issues in that regard and will examine evaluation results and the recommendations of the group to help bring the lessons into the mainstream. In the meantime, the officials continue to liaise with Young Ballymun to ensure priority services can be secured until mid-2017.