Written Answers. - Parliamentary Debates - Houses of the Oireachtas

Questions— 14 February 2012. Written Answers
who are witnesses to domestic violence and children as carers. This month a set of briefing
notes covering more than half of these studies was published, containing key messages for
policy and practice arising from this research. The largest study under the National Children’s
Research Programme is Growing Up in Ireland, the National Longitudinal Study of Children.
This Study is following the development of almost 20,000 children in Ireland across two cohorts:
an infant cohort recruited at age nine-months; and a child cohort recruited at age nine years.
Since 2006, when the first phase of the study commenced, two waves of data collection of the
infant cohort have been completed (at age nine-months and three years) and two waves of data
collection of the child cohort are also almost completed (at ages nine years and thirteen years).
These studies allow us to better understand children’s lives, particularly the lives of children
at risk. Growing Up in Ireland in particular, also allows us to better understand the risk and
protective factors for these children and the importance of early experiences on outcomes later
in life.
Further, the recently published National Strategy for Research and Data on Children’s Lives,
2011-2016 contains commitments to improving our knowledge of children’s lives and the supports
and services needed across five themes based on the National Services Outcomes of the
Agenda for Children’s Services. Some examples include:
Child protection
— Analysis of existing reports and literature on children in need of protection and in
care of the State with extraction of key messages to be published by mid 2013.
Youth justice
— Studies measuring the impact and outcomes of youth justice initiatives will be carried
out over the period 2012-2015.
Early Childhood Care and Education
— Findings of process and intervention evaluations from the Prevention and Early Intervention
Programme by mid 2014.
Children’s participation in decision-making
— Two reports on the extent to which children’s voices are heard in policy and service
development will be published at the end of 2012, from a research project to examine
young people’s experiences of existing participation structures and from a review of
literature on participation initiates and experiences with seldom-heard young people.
Youth affairs
— Administrative data on youth work services will be used to profile activity, resources
and services in this sector, starting in 2012.
Poverty and social inclusion
— Performance indicators to monitor the effectiveness and efficiency of child income
support payments will be published by the Department of Social Protection commencing
in 2012.
Health Services
616. Deputy Bernard J. Durkan asked the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the
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