MC and Speakers
Thursday November 24th , 12 to 1pm
Speakers
Kevin Webster, Senior Prevention, Partnership and Family Support (PPFS) Manager in Dublin South East and Wicklow. Kevin is a qualified social worker with 40 years practice experience across the community, voluntary and primarily the statutory sector in Ireland. His main responsibility is external integration of the social work department with the community and voluntary sector to deliver family support services and Meitheal as a prevention and early intervention response for children and families.
Lána McCarthy, Family and Community Literacy Coordinator, Young Ballymun. Lana has developed a series of family literacy programmes and delivers them in Ballymun in partnership with HSCL Teachers, Speech and Language Therapists and Youth and Community workers. She also co-ordinates the Oral Language Forum – an inter-disciplinary forum for educators, speech and language therapists and researchers to share best practice in relation to oral language development.
Padraig Fitzgerald, Rethink Ireland Pádraig is a Fund Manager at Rethink Ireland. He previously worked as the International Programmes Manager for The Hope Foundation and oversaw the NGO’s projects in West Bengal, India. As part of his work with The Hope Foundation, Pádraig was awarded by the Eurpoe/India Centre for Business & Industry as being one of the top 40 Under 40 Leaders promoting EU/Indian relations.
Niamh Dowler, Co-ordinator, Laois Offaly Children & Young People’s Services Committee (CYPSC). Earlier this year, Laois Offaly CYPSC was awarded funding under the What Works Sharing Knowledge Fund for the ‘Consent Education and Healthy Relationships’ project, working with Tullamore Rape Crisis Centre.
Eileen Smith, Project Manager, Hillstreet Family Resource Centre. Hillstreet Family Resource Centre was awarded funding under the What Works Learning Together Fund to develop an implementation manual for their ‘Preparation for Preschool Programme’, aimed at organisations interested in delivering the programme.
Áine Kerr, MC. Áine Kerr is co-founder and COO of Kinzen, a regular on broadcast media, a Fellow of Columbia University’s Sulzberger Leadership Programme and an award-winning journalist.
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Programme of Events
Event One:
In person/online
‘Partners in Prevention: Launch’
Monday November 21st
11:00am – 12:30pm
Join some of the key partners in prevention and early intervention in Ireland, including practitioners, policy makers, parents and the organisations which work with them.
Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Roderic O’Gorman TD will launch the series, and we will hear from Hanna Vseviov, Deputy Secretary at the Department of Social Affairs in Estonia. Join us in person for some networking, or watch through the livestream.
Event Two:
Online only
‘Partners in Policy: Prevention & early intervention in policy’
Wednesday November 23rd
12:00pm – 1:00pm
Policy initiatives which aim to improve the lives of children and families require policy makers to work across different government departments, sectors and with wider society.
During this event, Dr Wadih Maalouf from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) will talk about the importance of families as partners in prevention strategies. A panel of contributors from Ireland will share their experience of embedding prevention and collaboration into policy design and implementation.
Event Three:
Online only
‘Partners in Practice: Prevention & early intervention in practice’
Thursday November 24th
12:00pm – 1:00pm
What Works supports practitioners and their organisations to collaborate and to share knowledge and best practice.
This event will hear from Kevin Webster, Senior Manager, Prevention, Partnership and Family Support in Tusla, the Child and Family Agency, along with other stakeholders, and organisations funded through the What Works Sharing Knowledge Fund, to hear their experience and what helps to put collaboration into practice.