Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 22 September 2021
143. Deputy Violet-Anne Wynne asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the projects or grantees in his recently announced €1 million funding for children’s services within the What Works initiative that will be targeted directly at benefiting the lives of children with disabilities. [45624/21]
Amharc ar fhreagraMy Department has allocated funding under the What Works initiative, funded through Dormant Accounts, for children’s services under three funding initiatives in 2021: the What Works Training Fund, the Learning Together Fund, and the Children and Youth Digital Solutions Fund.
The What Works Training Fund is now open for applications and will support community and voluntary organisations who are members of the Tusla Child and Family Support Networks (CFSNs) and provide services to children, young people and families in areas of disadvantage, to assist in meeting their training needs.
The Learning Together Fund was designed to support community and voluntary organisations or networks of statutory and non-government organisations, to promote increased understanding and use of evidence informed approaches to prevention and early intervention services for children, young people and their families.
Finally, the Children and Youth Digital Solutions Fund is a one year fund created by Rethink Ireland and funded by my Department.
Under the Children and Youth Digital Solutions Fund, €50,000 was awarded to Dyspraxia/ DCD Ireland for their Partnering for Occupational Therapy Telehealth Services (POTTS) project, in addition to €10,000 in non-financial supports and support through the Rethink Ireland Accelerator Programme which is a minimum of five days of capacity building workshops.
This project addresses waiting times for an initial Occupation Health assessment of children. The project works with supervised Occupational Therapy students from the University of Limerick to deliver one to one and group therapy interventions to children and young people. This funding will provide support to more children across the country awaiting clinical assessments and it also aims to produce a template that can be used by other services to provide clinical telehealth services to their users.
Also under the Children and Youth Digital Solutions Fund, Foróige received a similar award for their VRóige project. This project aims to address social isolation and developmental opportunities for young people who are hard to reach, such as those living rurally, with disabilities, suffering with social anxiety, young carers or those in hospital. Using immersive technology, this project addresses social isolation by connecting them to Foróige programmes, professional youth workers, trained volunteers and like-minded peers.
Through the What Works Learning Together Fund, €4,510 has been allocated to St. Gabriel’s Foundation for its Behavioural Support Programme. This programme works with children presenting with complex disabilities and severe behavioural challenges along with their families in a family centred practice model of service delivery. The money awarded to St. Gabriel’s is intended to fund the upskilling of Therapy Assistants. This coaching is aimed at helping to maintain a calm home for the family as a whole and vastly improving the child’s ability to participate in school activities and positively engage with peers and school staff alike. The overall positive impact is reducing the need for crisis intervention and helps to delay and prevent the ultimate need for long term residential care in some cases.
Additionally, Ballincollig Family Resource Centre Ltd was awarded €10,000. This grant will go towards its Ballincollig ASD Community Response Capacity Building Network which provides Parents Plus Special Needs Programme Training to a network of front-line support workers. These front-line workers include childcare workers, youth workers and family support workers who provide parental support for children with ASD in the Ballincollig community. The funding is intended to also allow 20 frontline support workers to participate in a bespoke foundational program delivered on Autism Spectrum Disorders.
A further €20,000 has been allocated to the South West Inner City Network (SWICN) to fund its #HeadStr8 programme. This programme is a collaborative project to respond to the need for a nurturing trauma informed approach to services in Dublin 8. Their services aim to support a wide range of young people and their families, including young people with mental health issues and co-occurring disabilities.
