Minister Foley allocates over €320,000 to strengthen prevention and early intervention services for children and young people
- Published on: 27 November 2025
- Last updated on: 27 November 2025
€329,625 in Dormant Accounts funding awarded to 13 community and voluntary projects under the 2025 What Works Enhancing Quality Fund
The Minister for Children, Disability and Equality, Norma Foley T.D., has announced €329,625 in Dormant Accounts funding for 13 community and voluntary organisations across Ireland. The funding, allocated under the 2025 What Works Enhancing Quality Fund, will support organisations to strengthen prevention and early intervention services for children, young people and families.
The investment supports initiatives in areas such as mental health, parenting support, bereavement services, social inclusion, domestic violence prevention, early childhood development and trauma-informed practice. The 13 successful projects were selected from 119 eligible applications following an independent assessment process.
Announcing the allocations, Minister Foley said:
“This funding is a direct investment in Ireland’s children and young people. Through the What Works initiative, we are targeting Dormant Account funding towards the services that can have the greatest impact, ensuring organisations delivering high-quality, evidence-informed supports have what they need to make a real and lasting difference for children, young people and families across the country.”
The Minister of State, Jerry Buttimer T.D, for the Department of Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht, the department that oversees the Dormant Account Fund, noted:
“The Dormant Accounts Fund has continually aided the most vulnerable in society. I am particularly pleased to see funding for this measure that will benefit young people across the country”
The 13 successful projects are:
- Barnardos - Children’s Bereavement Service Evaluation (Nationwide)
- Childhood Matters - Advancing Professional Development in Infant Mental Health (Nationwide)
- Children in Hospital Ireland - Quality Framework for Supporting Children in Hospital and their Families (Nationwide)
- Early Learning Initiative, National College of Ireland - Enhancing Quality in Home Visiting Services (Nationwide)
- Foróige - Evaluation of Creative Community Alternatives on Children and Young People at risk of entering care or those in foster care (Nationwide)
- Irish Foster Care Association - Meeting the Sensorimotor Supports for At-Risk Babies and Toddlers (Nationwide)
- South Presentation Centre CLG - Disrupting Immigrant Children’s Trajectory to Child Protection (Cork)
- Rotunda Hospital - Developmental Follow-Up Programme for High-Risk Infants (Dublin)
- Emotion Skills Ireland – Emotion Focused Skills Training Pilot in Schools (Dublin)
- School Completion Programme – Roma Cultural Mediation Project (Dublin)
- Saoirse Domestic Violence Services – Enhancing Healthy Relationships (Dublin)
- Daughters of Charity Child and Family Service – Circle of Security Training (Dublin)
- Children’s Grief Centre – Staff Training in Bereavement Support (Limerick)
Full project descriptions are set out in the Notes to Editors section below.
ENDS
Notes to Editors:
- What Works Initiative: Launched in 2019, the What Works initiative is funded by the Dormant Accounts Fund to strengthen evidence-based prevention and early intervention services for children and young people. It focuses on data, research, professional development, and quality improvement across community and voluntary services.
- Enhancing Quality Fund 2025: Supports continuous improvement and innovation in prevention and early intervention, helping organisations embed evidence-based practice and improve outcomes for children, young people, and families nationwide.
Further information can be found: https://whatworks.gov.ie/
Project Descriptions
|
Organisation |
Project Title Theme Description |
Funding Allocated |
Location |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Barnardos Ireland |
Barnardos Children’s Bereavement Service (BCBS) - A theory-based and feasibility evaluation
Prevention and Early Intervention, Mental health Bereavement / Loss, Parenting Co-production, Trauma-informed practice, Capacity development Evaluation
This project will (1) develop a theory-based understanding of BCBS and (2) conduct a feasibility study of outcomes measures and evaluation processes.
The first goal of this project is to develop a systematic model of therapeutic bereavement support which can be offered within a family support context. Over the longer run, this will contribute to ongoing programme planning and evidence-based implementation, as well as enabling clear communication to external partners and stakeholders, including service users, professionals/partner organisations, researchers and policy makers.
|
€18,515 |
Nationwide |
|
Childhood Matters |
Advancing Professional Development in Infant Mental Health (IMH)
Children in Care, Infant Mental Health (IMH)
Build on established infrastructure and expertise within Childhood Matters and expand the IMH Masterclass training for routine delivery by the service. Support updating training materials and facilitate training events for professionals and researchers working in IMH. |
€27,950 |
Nationwide |
|
Children in Hospital Ireland |
Creating a Quality Framework for Supporting Children in Hospital (CIH) and their Families
Children’s Health, Family Support, Volunteer Support in Health Services
Develop national data on the experience of children in hospital and embed a culture of quality and improvement in CIH and provide solid evidence on how volunteer services impact children and families in hospital by
1. Carrying out a needs analysis to review the data current data, standards and regulations
2. design and test new approaches, such as improved feedback systems and a ’champions model’ where families and volunteers help lead change.
3. Staff and volunteers will be trained to use new systems for collecting and analysing information. |
€30,000 |
Nationwide |
|
Early Learning Initiative (ELI) National College of Ireland |
Empowering Excellence: Adapting to National Initiatives for High-Quality Home Visiting Services for Vulnerable Communities in Ireland
Early Childhood Home Visiting, Data Frameworks, Parenting, Early Learning, Quality Practice, Action Learning
To enhance the health and well-being of children, parents and families through effective home visiting,
1. Review and update existing data protocols, frameworks, training, and manuals to incorporate emerging practices at national and local level into our home visiting programmes
2. Continue to liaise with key stakeholders, particularly National Home Visiting Programme, HVA and ABC to ensure alignment of data definitions, frameworks and practices with emerging national models
3. Address training and support requirements to increase home visiting teams’ use of data to inform practice, engagement with children, families and other stakeholders and alignment with national models.
|
€30,000 |
Nationwide |
|
Foróige |
Evaluating the Impact of Creative Community Alternatives (CCA) on Children and Young People who are at risk of entering care or those in foster care.
Research for future intervention planning
The research will inform future planning of interventions and programmes that will continue to make a meaningful difference in the lives of children and young people in the care system.
The project works with those at level 3 and 4 of the Hardiker model, who are experiencing complex problems. The projects aim to assist the young person develop appropriate resilience and social skills so that they can achieve their full potential and participate positively in society
The project also provides support to parents/foster parents and siblings of the young people involved. Interventions are designed to promote positive coping capacities and self-care, and include experiential, developmental, and resilience-building programmes.
|
€30,000 |
Nationwide |
|
Irish Foster Care Association |
Meeting the Sensorimotor Needs of At-Risk Babies and Toddlers
Parenting and Care of Babies and Toddlers in the Care System
Training front-line practitioners working with at-risk babies and toddlers and the Foster Carers who look after them and to run early intervention groupwork with babies and toddlers their care and their foster carers. Deliver group work to promote sensorimotor development, enhance infant-carer relationships and promote bodily and emotional regulation. |
€30,000 |
Nationwide |
|
South Presentation Centre CLG |
Disrupting Immigrant Children’s Trajectory to Child Protection (DICT-CP)
Parent-Child mental health, Social Inclusion, Parenting
A pilot study to gather data on the acceptability and effectiveness of prescribed play intervention, dialogue workshops and qualitative data to
1. Enhance relationships between professionals and the immigrant families that they work with.
2. strengthen the parent-child relationship by providing intervention supports for parents to tolerate their child’s stress.
The overall project objective is to disrupt the trajectory of children from an immigrant background to child welfare and protection and thus discontinue the trauma that child removal causes, through an early intervention that focuses on both the parent and child’s mental health and wellbeing, and offers a community-based, relational approach that enhances parent-child connectedness.
|
€29,560 |
Cork |
|
Rotunda Hospital |
Expanding developmental follow-up to high-risk infants: an Occupational Therapy led, web-based surveillance programme
Early intervention, Child Development, Innovation
To expand service delivery to provide web-based developmental surveillance and screening (fine-motor, cognition, social-emotional and sensory processing) to new-borns and high-risk infants to enable prevention and early intervention as well as providing anticipatory guidance. The purpose of the project is to optimise survival, physical health and safety for new-borns and high-risk infants. |
€25,000 |
Dublin |
|
Emotion Skills Ireland |
Adapting Emotion Focused Skills Training to the Irish Schools Context: A Pilot Study of a Trauma informed Whole School Approach to Mental Health Promotion
Mental Health, Early Intervention, Education, Parenting
Piloting Emotions Focused Skills Training (EFST) to teachers and parents -that will give them with evidence based emotional support skills and create sustainable mental health infrastructure within schools to promote, prevent and provide early intervention for children and youth with psychological distress. |
€30,000 |
Dublin |
|
School Completion Programme |
Roma Cultural Mediation project
Education and Social Marginalisation
The SCP will make Cultural Mediation available to three schools in the Dublin 1&7 areas.
The goal of the project is to promote inclusivity, cultural understanding, and equal access to education. It supports positive relationships between Roma families, students, and school staff, leading to improved attendance, engagement, and learning outcomes.
|
€28,600 |
Dublin |
|
Saoirse Domestic Violence Services |
Enhancing Healthy Relationships Workshops through Youth Participation, Media Creation and Independent Evaluation
Domestic Violence Prevention, Child and Youth Participation, Early Intervention, Mental Health, Healthy Relationship Development
Enhancing existing services provided by Saoirse Domestic Violence Services, this project will design new media content to make relationship education more relatable and impactful, rooted in prevention and early intervention. This will be informed by involving young people directly in focus groups and pilot workshops from various cohorts i.e. migrant groups/LGBTQi+ etc. to ensure language and content is inclusive and relevant while also withstanding future trends.
|
€15,000 |
Dublin |
|
Daughters of Charity Child and Family Service |
Circle of Security Training
Parenting Support, Psychoeducational Support for Parents, Early Intervention, Emotional Support, Therapeutic Individual and Group Interventions, Child and Parent Attachment.
To alter the family system, so certain cycles of behaviours such as domestic violence, addiction and anti-social behaviours can be broken or reduced, this project will train 25 staff to deliver a Circle of Security Parenting Programme to parents and caregivers while they are on a waiting list for individual supports.
This provides an early intervention, needs based support in a peer led environment. The Circle of Security programme supports secure child-caregiver attachment which in return can improve quality of life and reduce traumatic experiences that children and young people can be exposed to or experience.
|
€30,000 |
Dublin |
|
The Children’s Grief Centre |
Staff training and development for Support Workers working directly with bereaved child and their families.
Early Intervention, Mental Health, Bereavement Support
To support children and young people between the ages of 4-18 years who have been affected by loss as a result of death, parental separation or divorce by training staff in Trauma-Informed Care and Response, Therapeutic and Creative Play techniques for anxious children, sensory play to aid emotional regulation, strategies for engaging with teenagers and training for managing complicated and traumatic grief. |
€5,000 |
Limerick |