Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 13 February 2019
50. Deputy John Curran asked the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs if she will consider putting steps in place following the 2018 evaluation of the ABC programme to develop this programme in other disadvantaged communities; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [6949/19]
View answerThe Area Based Childhood (ABC) Programme is a prevention and early intervention initiative targeting investment in effective services to improve the outcomes for children and families living in a number of specific areas of disadvantage.
Established in 2013 in line with the commitment in the Programme for Government to adopt an area-based approach to tackling child poverty, the ABC Programme was designed as a time-bound, co-funding agreement led by the Department of Children and Youth Affairs (DCYA) in conjunction with The Atlantic Philanthropies (Atlantic), originally in the amount of €29.7m for the period 2013-2017. In late 2016, my Department secured additional funding to ensure that all 13 existing ABC sites remained in contract to the end of December 2017.
With the closure of The Atlantic Philanthropies operations in Ireland, DCYA is now the sole funder of the ABC Programme. In last year’s budget, further funding was secured to maintain the existing ABC Programme up to the end of 2018. As of 31st December 2018 €38.7m has been invested jointly by the co-funders to the ABC Programme (€14.9m from Atlantic and €23.8m from DCYA). A national evaluation of the ABC programme was carried out by the Centre for Effective Services (CES) and the published reports are now available on the DCYA website.
In November 2017, my Department initiated a process, in consultation with key ABC Programme stakeholders, to consider options for sustaining the work of the ABC Programme within a new vision for a community based prevention and early intervention programme from 2019 and beyond. Following these consultations, the decision was taken to transfer the current ABC Programme to Tusla, from September 2019 as part of the national Prevention, Partnership and Family Support Programme (PPFS).
A working group was established in May 2018 to support the transition into this new national structure that can build on the achievements to date in both the ABC and PPFS Programmes, and strengthen Tusla’s prevention and early intervention operations. As part of this national structure, it will take a renewed focus on addressing child poverty and inform the delivery of prevention and early intervention initiatives, improving the lives of children and families throughout Ireland.
Embedding the ABC programme and the learning from same within a wider infrastructure is key to strengthening local community based responses. It should also be recognised that the learning from the ABC and a range of other prevention programmes has been taken on by the What Works Programmes led by my Department. This is a programme that looks at enhancing quality and capacity building in the area of prevention and early intervention to effect change at systems level. It focuses on the area of information, evidence, capacity and quality development.
Moving on both of these fronts: locally, through strengthening the ABC and PPFS programmes; and nationally, through the What Works initiative, is crucial in us embedding and transferring best practice in a strategic and sustainable way.
