Preparing for Life

preparing for life

Preparing for Life is a prevention and early intervention project based in north Dublin.

It works to improve children’s lives by supporting parents, early years practitioners and teachers to use proven approaches to help children achieve their full potential.

It works with families, health services, pre-schools and schools from pregnancy through childhood.

How is Preparing for Life funded?

Preparing for Life is funded by the Department of Children and Youth Affairs and the Atlantic Philanthropies under the Area Based Childhood Programme.

Preparing for Life Origins

Preparing for Life began as an early intervention research project. Since 2008, we have worked with 200 families in Dublin 5 and 17 supporting parents to get their children ready to start school. We did this by offering:
  • Mentoring in the home to equip parents with the knowledge and skills to help their children develop.
  • Positive parenting courses for parents of children aged two and over.
  • Support for early years settings to achieve Síolta accreditation.

Together with the UCD Geary Institute, we have followed the journey of these families to evaluate if our programme improves children’s school readiness and to understand the factors that make our work successful.The learning from this research phase will inform our work under the Area Based Childhood Programme. To read more about the Preparing for Life Phase I research, please click here.

Area Based Childhood Programme Today

In 2013, we successfully applied for funding, to expand our prevention and early intervention work with children and families living in Dublin 5 and 17 under the Area Based Childhood Programme, funded by the Department of Children and Youth Affairs and the Atlantic Philanthropies.
In this new phase from 2014 to 2016, we will build on our learning from Phase I and work in partnership with families, health services, pre-schools and schools to deliver the following interventions:
  • A home visitation and mentoring programme to equip parents with the knowledge and skills they need to help their child develop.
  • Delivery of Triple P positive parenting courses.
  • Support for the delivery of antenatal care & education in the community.
  • A quality support programme for our partner early childhood settings.
  • Coaching in speech & language development for our partner early childhood settings.
  • An early years to school transition programme.
  • Coaching for teachers in our partner primary schools in literacy, play and self-regulation programmes.

For more information, please visit www.preparingforlife.ie