They visited and learned on the spot about the work of Barnardos Ireland. Barnardos is a leading Irish nongovernmental organisation working with to support children and youth at risk and their families.
During the three working days the hosts shared with us their long term experience in provision of services for children and families in the community and a special attention was paid to work in support for children and families at risk.
The study visit began with a meeting with Suzanne Connolly, Director of Children's Services and Siobhan Greene, Head of Service Design and Development at Barnardos central office in Dublin. They presented the different departments and centres of Barnardos as well as the way the organisation operates. They also explained the integral procedure for development of services and stressed on the systems and the standards used for the evaluation of the services.
We visited the Project on Buckingham Street in the central part of the city where the service support for families in a serious need is provided. We had the opportunity to go around the premises adapted for work with children and their families, we learned about the stages in assessment of each case before a decision is taken about the concrete support that is to be offered.
The second day started with a visit to the Mulhuddart Regional office in the North of Dublin and a meeting with Grainne Burke, Assistant Director of Children's Services in Dublin North. The activities of Barnardos in the region were presented in details during the meeting including a special focus on the service “Early years for children aged 0 to 5 year; the Friendship programme helping children to overcome aggression, to understand and express their feelings and emotions and to make friends easier and Wizards of words programme for children who have difficulties with reading.
The group split in three in the afternoon so that we visit three different services in the region. We learned about the Teen parent support programme for young parents aged 13 to 19 years in Finglas; Springboard Family support in Corduff where family advisors work at the same time with the children and their families and the TESO Programme which is especially developed for support and education for travelers communities in the region.
During the last day of the study visit to traveled to Thurles where we had a meeting with Liz Chaloner, Assistant Director of Children's Services in the South region. Half of our group stayed in Thurles and got introduced in details of the Early years service and the way it is provided in a rural area. The other half of the group travelled further to Clonmel where visited a service for support to families in rural areas and got to know more about the method “family welfare conferences”.
Right after the return trip to Bulgaria all participants shared that the study visit to Ireland has been interesting and inspiring for them and that at the moment they are considering various opportunities to apply concrete components that they have seen at Barnardos in their everyday work in Bulgaria.
