For more than a decade, The Atlantic Philanthropies, sometimes in conjunction with Government and other organisations, has invested over €96m in 20 agencies and community groups running 52 prevention and early intervention programmes throughout the island of Ireland. These include a funding partnership between the Irish Government and The Atlantic Philanthropies to support three large-scale model prevention and early intervention projects in disadvantaged areas of Dublin (Childhood Development Initiative in Tallaght West, Youngballymun and Preparing for Life in North Dublin). The Initiative supports services working in a wide range of areas such as early childhood, literacy and learning, child health and behaviour, parenting, sexual health and youth mentoring.All services funded under the Initiative were required to rigorously evaluate the effectiveness of their services in improving outcomes for children. These highly rigorous evaluations include randomised control trials, quasi-experimental studies and qualitative work. The goal was to help the communities in which they operate, but also to share their learning so that policy makers and those who design, and deliver and fund services for children can benefit from their experience and put it to work for other communities. This report synthesises the learning from 16 of these organisations about choosing, developing, implementing, operationalising and evaluating their evidence-informed services and programmes. It examines how they made decisions at each stage of the development of the projects and the barriers and enablers they encountered. The aim is to make this learning useable for those responsible for deciding which services will improve outcomes for children and families, the organisations who deliver them and those who evaluate their impact.
Centre for Effective Services (CES)
http://www.effectiveservices.org/
Contact Info:
Ireland9 Harcourt Street General Information: |
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Northern Ireland65-67 Chichester Street General Information: |