Ready, Steady, Grow
Staff team and Service Launch

Mary Fanning (Parent-Child Psychological Support Programme Co-ordinator) and Sarah Brewer (Speech and Language Therapist) are delighted to have joined our Ready, Steady, Grow team since the beginning of September.  Together with Carmel Byrne (Administrator), we have been busy progressing Ready Steady Grow, youngballymun’s strand for parents and children in Ballymun from the ante-natal period up to three years of age. We are really looking forwad to celebrating our work with babies and toddlers as part of youngballymun's "A Child is Born" Conference.  President Mary McAleese will address the Conference which is on Thursday 10th December 2009.

Premises

• We are very excited about the imminent completion of the Ready, Steady, Grow premises which is located at Ballymun East Youth Centre, Woodhazel Terrace (behind Virgin Mary Girls’ School). 
• Along the way, we have had regular meetings with our partners - BRL architects and builders; HSE’s Public Health Nurse Service; other user groups i.e. Aisling and The Plough
• Our premises will open from mid November and we look forward to welcoming Ballymun parents and babies to our warm and welcoming community and family-friendly Ready, Steady Grow centre.

Ante Natal Strand

• Ready, Steady, Grow is now working collaboratively with the HSE Primary Care Team to enhance their ante-natal programme. 
• We would love to see more expectant mothers join this local supportive programme to help prepare for parenthood!  The next group will take place in January/February 2010.  For more information, call Angela O’Malley (Public Health Nurse) on 8467012.

Parent Child Psychological Support Programme

• This exciting new programme rolls out from mid November and will be available  to all Ballymun parents and babies aged 3-18 months.  It is delivered in partnership with the HSE’s Public Health Nurse Team and is an expansion of the current child-health clinics. 
• We have also visited local crèches in Ballymun to make links with early years services in the area.   
• We were delighted to get the feedback of a small group of Ballymun mothers who helped us in the design of our promotional brochures and fliers, which will be distributed soon.

Infant Mental Health

• We are currently gearing up for Infant Mental Health training workshops for local service providers.  These informative workshops will be facilitated by Rochelle Matacz and Catherine Maguire from the Infant Mental Health Network in Cork, which has established links with the Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health. 
•  
  Mary Fanning and Sarah Brewer attended an Infant Mental Health Conference day in October, which was facilitated by the Dr Angela Joyce, from the renowned Anna Freud Centre in London.  Angela Joyce is an esteemed Child and Adult Psychoanalyst and we were delighted to have the opportunity to hear about her extensive clinical experience in the area of parent-infant psychoanalysis and psychotherapy.   

3, 4, 5 Learning Years

Siolta

• 5 services fully immersed in the Siolta Quality Assurance Process and at Step 6 of QAP (Baseline Assessment) over the last couple of months. Support from Joanne Waters our Siolta coordinator has included on site individual and group support to those involved in completing the baseline assessment of the service
• The first of the five services has now progressed to the final phase of the baseline assessment where in the course of the month of November they will with the assistance of the coordinator assign themselves levels of quality across different standards in the Siolta framework
• It’s not just the child care staff in a service that are interested in quality practice – a presentation on Síolta was delivered by Joanne to the administration, housekeeping and catering staff in 1 service, proving that quality practice with children involves everyone!
• Four community playgroups started the Siolta process with an introductory workshop in September
• Liaison with the local childminder advisory officers led to an evening workshop on Siolta to group of 5 childminders
• Out of this work Joanne is currently planning with Sarah Brewer, our Speech & language Therapist who works across services for 0-5’s, a training programme on the Siolta Interactions standard  to group of 12 childminders which will begin in November 09.

Highscope

• The recruitment of our Highscope coordinators is underway with Barnardos and our first Highscope training programme is about to start!Premises
• We have just started work on our new premises in Ballymun Town Centre so we will soon have a ‘shop front’ and we will be much more accessible to all our early years partners.

Jigsaw

WAF

• The online data collection system for Wraparound developed by Headstrong has gone live. Jigsaw staff members and a number of WAF’s attended a workshop in the RECO in September to try out the system and give feedback on any changes they felt needed to be made.
• Work has begun on the second round of the WAF training and this time there will be DVD’s of real WAF’s in action, we are working on these now and WAF’s from Ballymun and young people for the Roundabout Youth Theatre are playing the starring roles.

Lunchtime Lectures

• We have had a number of lunchtime lectures this Autumn including topics such as “Adolescent Depression” Dr. Graham Connon HSE, “Anxiety Disorder” Ted Tierney Mental Health Ireland, “Teenage Kicks: Adolescent Drug Use” Dr. Paul Quigley Domville House and “Resilience and Young People” Helen Coughlan Headstrong.

Jigsaw - around the country

• November will see Ballymun hosting a national learning network where all Jigsaw sites across the country will come together to share learning and plan for the future.

It's Good to Talk

• We were very active in ‘It’s Good To Talk’ week the entire programme for which was coordinated and facilitated by Jigsaw coordinator Catherine McGowan - So our thanks to Catherine for the initial idea and for making such a great job of the week!

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