Reflections on Incredible Years Ballymun four years on
By Colma Nic Lughadha, Education Programme Manager, Ballymun Whitehall Area Partnership
In 2005 Ballymun Whitehall Area Partnership engaged in eight focus groups with 140 teachers and collected 82 completed questionnaires asking teachers what the educational priorities for the area were. They identified behaviour in the classroom as the number one issue.
When working as Education Programme Manager then at Ballymun Whitehall Area Partnership we began discussions with Clondalkin Area Partnership in 2005 to bring the Incredible Years Programme to Ballymun. By 2006 we had €10,000 to fund the start-up of the programme. Before using the money we became “salesmen” for the programme, meeting with a whole variety of people to explain this amazing programme to them and to get them on board to establish it in Ballymun. Nine meetings later we had recruited 11 people willing to become trained in the Incredible Years Programme from six different organisations including Virgin Mary Girls National School, Virgin Mary Boys National School, St. Joseph’s Junior National School, BEST School Completion Programme, Community and Family Training Agency (CAFTA) and Dublin City Council Social Inclusion Unit. The Partnership’s funding resourced the training of eight of those eleven in the implementation of the Programme.
Following this and more meetings! we had purchased Incredible Years resources, training manuals and materials and puppets, to enable those who had completed the training to now get on with the hard piece; the actual work to deliver the programme to children and their parents.
In June 2007 Ballymun Partnership (as it was then called) handed over responsibility for Incredible Years Ballymun to youngballymun who by this time had planned a ten-year strategy for children and young people in Ballymun with a commitment to Incredible Years as a key part of that strategy. youngballymun planned to invest hugely in supporting, expanding and embedding the programme here in our community.
Two years later I can see the fruits of the Partnership’s groundwork and the commitment of the partners who invested their time and energies in the idea four years ago and are now still delivering and shaping the Incredible Years Programme. The achievements of these foot soldiers have been realised through the significant investment of funding, time and expertise through the youngballymun programme and staff; supporting all of the Incredible Years partners to work with parents, children and their teachers while recruiting more schools and agencies to get trained and become part of the Incredible Years Ballymun Team.
The future is brighter than ever before for children and families in Ballymun who have been and who will be touched by the Incredible Years Programme. A massive well done to all involved so far, keep up the excellent work!
