Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire
Question:369. Deputy Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire asked the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the projected cost of expanding the preparing for life programme model to all area-based childhood areas. [12064/16]
View answerWednesday, 25 May 2016
Questions (369)
Written answers
The ABC programme is a joint prevention and early intervention initiative led by the Department of Children and Youth Affairs and the Atlantic Philanthropies. It is a time-bound, co-funding arrangement in the amount of €29.7m from 2013 to 2017. 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 poverty in 13 areas of disadvantage. The focus of the work under the ABC Programme covers in the main: Child Health & Development; Children’s Learning; Parenting; and Integrated Service Delivery.
The ABC programme was preceded by the Prevention and Early Intervention Programme (PEIP) (2007-2013) in which three sites participated: youngballymun, The Childhood Development Initiative Tallaght and The Preparing for Life Programme, Darndale. €50m has been provided to these three sites over the duration of both the PEIP and ABC programmes.
The total funding for The Preparing for Life Programme under the ABC Programme is €3.739m, which if annualised would amount to approximately €.934m per annum. If this programme was to be expanded across the other 12 sites, assuming similar design and levels of need, it is anticipated that the full costs would be in the region of €11.2m. The programme has a range of discrete elements.
I welcome the very positive results coming from the evaluation of the Preparing for Life Programme relating to the home visiting and parenting programme elements, and am aware that a cost study is being carried out at present.
These evaluation findings and the associated costs will be key in informing the consideration of mainstreaming the learning from the Preparing for Life Programme along with the existing and emerging evaluation findings across the range of ABC programme sites.