No result found
2019-12-01
Childhood Development Initiative (CDI);
Youth mental health is significant issue nationally as well as within South County Dublin. There is aperception amongst both service providers and parents that many children and young people are beingexposed to increasingly complex stressors and that the range of influences on their wellbeing are agrowing challenge. Whether this is the case or not, we do know that services are under pressure to respondeffectively, quickly and appropriately.This Report is the result of strong inter-agency working, bringing together statutory services with the community and voluntary sector, engaging with hospitals and community based providers, andoffering an opportunity for a number of disciplines and services to share their collective wisdom andinsights to better understand local dynamics.
2017-01-01
Childhood Development Initiative, Dublin;
This study is based on consultation with three core stakeholder groups: residents in Tallaght West; young people in the area, and those working (paid and unpaid) in the community. Mixed methods were undertaken including surveys and Focus Groups, with the former being undertaken by local residents. Overall, feedback about living and working in Tallaght West is positive, with community spirit, sense of belonging and strong local connections all being cited as area strengths. There is also a small but consistent proportion of respondents who do not share these experiences, and for whom the neighbourhood is not a safe or welcoming place. There are no clear factors influencing these very different responses. Finally, there are similar dynamics amongst service providers and residents in terms of capacity to impact on decisions. The latter report limited involvement in their communities and do not feel they have the opportunity to change the environment; whilst the former express dissatisfaction with management approaches and suggest a disconnect between front line experience and high level decision making.
2017-01-01
Childhood Development Initiative, Dublin;
This document comprises the final report of the evaluation of the Childhood Development Initiative's Antenatal To Three Initiative (ATTI). ATTI involves a collaborative process, engaging a variety of statutory and non-statutory partners in the Tallaght West area, all of whom are committed to strengthening interagency coordination with a view to improving outcomes for children and families in the antenatal to three age cohort.
2012-01-01
Childhood Development Initiative (CDI);
CDI conducted a survey in 2010 to examine the needs of children and families in Tallaght West called 'How Are Our Families?' (2012). This was a follow up to the 2005 study which underpins the CDI Strategy (How Are Our Kids, 2005). The purpose of 'How Are Our Families?' was to update our understanding and information on families in the community and particularly the risk and protective factors associated with children's wellbeing. The research focused on an extensive set of child and family demographic information and wellbeing indicators in order to provide a holistic picture of children's, young people's, and family's lives: Living circumstances; education and/or employment; physical and mental health; social relationships; informal and formal support; family issues; positive experiences; sense of community; safety issues; service utilisation; and financial circumstances.
2011-08-02
Childhood Development Initiative (CDI);
The Childhood Development Initiative (CDI) is an innovative, community based response to a comprehensive consultation process undertaken in Tallaght West. Working with a wide range of locally established service providers, CDI is delivering services to children and families which meet identified needs. Etch of these is being rigorously evaluated, and considerable attention is being given to quality assurance, promotion of reflective practice, and professional training and support. The insights gained, and techniques developed during this process are central to delivering high quality services with the view to improving our understanding of what enables children to meet their potential, gain their developmental milestones within appropriate timeframes and become healthy and active citizens. This Workbook describes key processes relating to practice, organisational culture and systems change which support the implementation of evidence-based and evidence-informed programmes and practices. From CDI's experience, implementing evidence-based programmes not only requires specific structures and processes in place to support programme implementation and fidelity (e.g. training, coaching, and supervision) but also necessities a focus on the more generic aspects of delivering quality services (e.g. engaging in reflective practice in order to promote and maintain fidelity to a programme). The Workbook also addresses some fundamental areas in relation to monitoring and evaluation as a way of determining whether an intervention was effective or not. In effect, this Workbook hopes to explain the 'what', 'why', 'how' and 'did we?' of evidence-based practice. The Workbook is intended to provide readers with a comprehensive introduction to both the shared language and concepts underpinning the science and practice of implementation. It complements the 'What Works Process' guide published by the Centre for Effective Services (CES, 2011) which supports services in assessing how effective they are in improving outcomes for children and helps them to think about what works.
2012-08-02
Childhood Development Initiative (CDI);
Doodle Den is an after-school programme that was designed to promote young children's literacy in Tallaght West (Dublin). Doodle Den targeted 5 and 6 year-old children (Senior Infants class), and involved them in attending 3 after-school sessions each week, each lasting 1½ hours. It aimed to improve children's literacy through targeting the following literacy domains through a balanced literacy framework: writing, text comprehension, phonics, sight vocabulary, independent reading and fluency. It operated throughout the normal school year, over a 36-week period.A rigorous evaluation of the effects of the programme was completed by the Centre for Effective Education at Queen's University Belfast, which included a randomised controlled trial (RCT) to measure the effects of the programme on child outcomes and a process evaluation that investigated its implementation. The study focused on three primary outcomes and seven secondary outcomes, utilising a combination of child, parent and teacher responses. The findings of the randomised control trial provided strong and robust evidence that the programme met its original aim of making moderate improvements in the children's literacy. The process evaluation showed that Doodle Den has received a positive response from a wide variety of stakeholders, including facilitators, school principals, parents and not least the children themselves through the Client Satisfaction Survey.
2012-01-01
Childhood Development Initiative (CDI);
Mate-Tricks is an after-school programme designed to promote pro-social behaviour in Tallaght West (Dublin). Tallaght West has been designated as an area of particular social and economic disadvantage with high levels of unemployment. Mate-Tricks is a bespoke intervention that combines elements of two pro-social behaviour programmes: the Strengthening Families Program (SFP) and Coping Power Program (CPP). The programme is a one-year multi-session after-school programme comprising 59 children-only sessions, 6 parent-only sessions and 3 family sessions, with each session lasting 1½ hours.The intended outcomes of this programme are stated as follows in the Mate-Tricks manual: enhance children's pro-social development; reduce children's anti-social behaviour; develop children's confidence and self-esteem; improve children's problem-solving skills; improve child-peer interactions; develop reasoning and empathy skills; improve parenting skills; improve parent/child interaction. This evaluation reports on the pilot of this programme. Of the 21 outcomes investigated, 19 showed no significant differences between the children who attended Mate-Tricks and the control group. However, there were 2 statistically significant effects of the Mate-Tricks programme and 3 other effects that approached significance. The lack of effects and the few negative effects found in this study replicates findings in several recent studies of after-school behaviour programmes.
2012-01-01
Childhood Development Initiative (CDI);
A retrospective evaluation of the Childhood Development Initiative (CDI) Speech and Language Therapy Service was undertaken. The design consisted of two strands. The first was quantitative and examined the referral, uptake and outcomes of the service. The second was qualitative and looked at the implementation. The main research questions were organised according to implementation of the programme; uptake and accessibility; and outcomes. The results of this evaluation suggest that the service succeeded in receiving referrals, assessing and intervening with 192 children in Tallaght West at an age when they were extremely unlikely to have been seen by any other local service and without waiting for a long period of time. Parents echoed these findings by reporting that their children were more ready for school as a result of the intervention. Parents and staff were in agreement that the model was a positive and welcome alternative to traditional clinic-based therapy delivery, in terms of its on-pre-school site location, which meant the SLTs were literally and figuratively accessible to children, parents, practitioners and teachers.
2016-08-02
Childhood Development Initiative (CDI);
The Childhood Development Initiative's Healthy Schools Programme seeks to improve children's health and well-being, and to increase their access to primary care services. The Healthy Schools Programme is a manualised initiative based on the World Health Organization's model for a health-promoting school. In the short and medium term, the focus of the Healthy Schools Programme is on addressing processes (policy, procedures and practice) that will facilitate change, leading a more health-promoting school environment.The aim of this study was to evaluate the implementation of, and outcomes from, the Healthy Schools Programme. The objective was to present the impact findings of the evaluation at the end of Year 2 of implementation and to compare these findings with those observed at baseline. In addition, the evaluation examined the programme's implementation process over its duration to examine if and how it was rolled out in line with its aims and objectives.The process evaluation found that the Healthy Schools Programme was very ambitious. The timeframe for change to occur to the degree that was aspired to at the outset of the 3-year evaluation phase was short. The findings highlight some of the key challenges that occurred during the earlier stages of implementation and some of the key processes that were found to work well, i.e. processes that involved the schools and the Healthy Schools Programme interacting in ways that fostered health-promoting practices and health-promoting school environments. Together, these findings inform a pathway forward in the development of health-promoting schools and the role and function of a Healthy Schools Programme.
2013-01-01
Childhood Development Initiative (CDI);
The Early Childhood Care and Education Programme of the Childhood Development Initiative is a 2-year programme targeted at children and their families in Tallaght West. The programme consisted of the following components: direct provision, over the course of 2 years, of a low-cost, flexible and broad-based curriculum; minimum qualifications of FETAC Level 5 in childcare or equivalent for childcare workers and degree in childcare or equivalent for senior childcare workers; Early Years practitioners worked a 37-hour working week, allowing for non-contact planning and paperwork and home visit time; Practitioner:child ratio of 1:5, which is more favourable than the national comparison of 1:6 or higher for a similar service; observation of children's learning to enable practitioners to develop child-centred follow-up work plans in collaboration with parents during home visits; provision of nutritious food, physical play and recreationThe final report of this evaluation addresses the baseline, mid-phase and end phase findings for the whole sample of children, parents and childcare services. This research was designed as a cluster randomised trial, an experimental method by which social units or clusters (in this case, Early Years services) were randomly allocated to intervention or control groups. Researchers first assessed children at the beginning of Early Years service provision (baseline) when they were aged at least 2 years and 6 months. Assessments focused on children's cognitive and language attainment on a range of standardised instrument subscales. Children were rated on their social skills at this time by their parents and their key worker.The findings show modest gains for the CDI Early Years Programme compared to the control group in a number of areas across different elements of the intervention. The strongest of these related to the quality of the curriculum and activities provided in intervention Early Years services. In terms of outcomes for children, gains were indicated in areas such as improved behaviour and social skills, child attendance, and better speech and language prognosis on entry to school.
2013-01-01
Childhood Development Initiative (CDI);
In September 2008, the Childhood Development Initiative (CDI) began the 3-year process of implementing the Community Safety Initiative (CSI) in Tallaght West, Co. Dublin. Through supporting local resident interaction and promoting collaborative responses to addressing local safety issues, the CSI seeks to improve people's perceptions of safety, improve neighbour relations and promote a safe and healthy environment for children and families (CDI, 2008b).The overall aims of the initiative (CDI, 2012) are: to improve safety and to promote pro-social behaviour across Tallaght West; to improve community awareness and participation in local activities and services; to encourage wide community engagement in maintaining a safe environment.This report is the final output of the 3-year evaluation (2008-2011) of the CSI by the Child and Family Research Centre, National University of Ireland, Galway. It builds on the research from three phases of data collection in order to present a comprehensive assessment of the development and implementation of the CSI. Specifically, the report evaluates the achievement of the overall aims of the CSI in this period.
2013-01-01
Childhood Development Initiative (CDI);
This report presents the key findings of an independent evaluation, undertaken by the UNESCO Child and Family Research Centre at the National University of Ireland, Galway, of the Restorative Practice Programme, part of the Childhood Development Initiative's (CDI) Community Safety Initiative (CSI). The study comprises (i) a process study evaluation of programme implementation under the headings of programme utilisation, programme organisation and programme fidelity; and (ii) an outcomes study evaluation of programme impact on participants' work, lives, organisations and family, and also the wider impact on community building and collaborative action.
