60 Second Bulletins
Ready Steady Grow
Local Pre-birth support group
- Spread the word! The next Preparing for Baby ante-natal support starts on 2nd February and runs for four weeks (2nd, 9th, 16th and 23rd February) from 10.30 until 12.30am on the 1st Floor of the Civic Centre. A visit to the Ready, Steady, Grow premises will be organised for parents who take part.
Baby and Toddler Development Clinic – good news for every new baby in Ballymun!
- One hundred and three babies (0-18months) have so far registered with the clinic which offers the Parent Child Psychological Support Programme, mentored by Professor Gelen Cerezo the programme developer. The programme is delivered by a team comprising the HSE Public Health Nurses and youngballymun’s Ready Steady Grow team and is the new universal service for all babies and toddlers in Ballymun.
- The service is based in the Ballymun East Child and Youth Centre (downstairs in the former Youthreach premises, beside the Virgin Mary schools) and runs by appointment each Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Information is sent out to the parents of every new-born and very toddler under the age of about 18 months in Ballymun
- The public health nurses’ drop-in baby clinic is also available in the new RSG premises on Monday afternoons from 2pm until 4pm for any parents who have concerns regarding the health of their baby or for mothers who may have post-natal health concerns.
To join the next pre-birth support group or make an appointment for your baby or toddler with the development clinic please call Carmel Byrne on 8579411
Infant Mental Health: Care and Support for babies, toddlers and their parents
- Forty two practitioners in community and health services in Ballymun completed their first two day training module in Infant Mental Health in the week January 11th – 15th 2010 with Dr.Deborah Weatherston from the Michigan Association of Infant Mental Health.
- Arising from Deborah’s week with us the Michigan Association of Infant Mental Health (together with their colleagues in the North Cork HSE and the support of the HSE Local Health Office in Ballymun) will now partner with youngballymun in the delivery of a new kind of service for babies and toddlers 0-3 years and their parents. The new partnership ( in both infant mental health training and parent and baby supports) will respond to the social and emotional support needs of new parents and their babies and toddlers across the community.
3,4,5 Learning Years
- Welcome to Antoinette Gibbs our Highscope Coordinator who joins us on February 1st; the appointment progresses the service significantly and marks another stage in the development of our partnership with Barnardos.
- The Highscope training programme for the five services who will implement the Highscope curriculum in their services with Antoinette’s support which began some months back is ongoing.
- 4 local early years services continue their baseline assessment with the support of Joanne Waters, our Síolta Coordinator. A fifth service has already completed their baseline assessment and has moved on to the action planning and service development stage of the work. There are 9 local services now working on Siolta at different stages in the process.
- We work closely with the Early Years Education Policy Unit, national early year’s organisations, Preparing for Life and CDI Tallaght informing the implementation and evaluation of SIOLTA nationally. The most recent Siolta review meeting took place on the 26th November 2009 in the Office of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs
- Sarah Brewer our Speech and Language therapist and Joanne Waters are delivering the Hanen ‘You Make A Difference’ oral language programme to childminders in Ballymun.
Incredible Years
- We want to say thank-you to Val Keating who leaves our IY CAFTA parent training team to resume her role with the CAFTA Transition Programme and a warm welcome to Liz Johnston has just joined the team
- We commenced three Basic Parent Programmes, Tuesday 19th January in Holy Spirit Boys School, Wednesday 20th and Thursday 21st in BRYR. Thirty eight parents have signed up for the programme - our thanks for both the schools and BRYR for the facilities they provide
- We are inviting all parents who have completed the IY BPP to get back together with us to see how they are getting on and to do a booster session on any of the key points of the IY programme.
- Gemma Cox our Evaluation Manager met with parents in the current training groups about building a standard evaluation measure into each programme - parents have been supportive of this development and we want to say a big thank-you to them for their participation.
- We have started recruitment for the next three parenting programmes, which start in early April. Parent trainers Elaine, Mary, Cathy and Val can be contacted on 087 617 3667 or 087 634 7001
- Breege Breheny, the IY schools coordinator fresh from Wales, is working with schools on the delivery of Teacher Classroom Management training
- The next round of training in Dina in the Classroom and Small Group Dina with Peter Loft from IY Seattle takes place in March 2010.
Write Minded
- Write-Minded produced in consultation with schools in Ballymun a Transitions programme and pack to support sixth class pupils in their transition to secondary school. The first ‘Transitions review’ meeting has taken place, including feedback from first year students in Trinity on their experiences and what sixth class pupils need to know. The second Transitions programme, informed by the review, is being organised across the primary schools in the area.
- We will be recruiting a project worker to work on the Family and Community strand of the Write-Minded service in the near future – the post will be advertised on our website and in the press.
- The 4 junior infant classes from Our Lady of Victories National School will be implementing the ‘Language Towards Literacy Programme’ in January 2010. This programme, which supports oral language development, has previously been implemented within the Virgin Mary’s schools with very positive results.
Literacivic
The following outlines the approach and next steps that will be taken to implement the Literacivic strategy:
- The Literacivic strategy be guided and informed by key principles and themes e.g. creative expression, communications and celebration; community engagement; active citizenship; the rights of the child;
- A Working Group with an independent Chair is being set up to develop the framework which will shape the implementation and delivery of Literacivic
