Dr Orla Doyle
PFL is a five-year school readiness programme, beginning with the recruitment of 200 pregnant women living in disadvantaged areas of north Dublin. The programme is designed to work with families from pregnancy onwards and aims to support the healthy development of the child. The experimental programme is the first of its kind in Ireland and aims to provide evidence on the best practice for early childhood interventions.
While overall the programme is part of a drive to transform the lives of Irish children born into disadvantaged communities over the coming years, it has also had a transformative affect on many of the people who have worked on it. Although such programmes have worked in America, Dr. Doyle says that evaluating them in an Irish context is an imperative: ‘While there have been similar early childhood programmes developed in other countries, mainly the US, we cannot assume that the effectiveness of a US-style intervention can be replicated in an Irish setting given the vast differences in our social welfare system and cultural context. Also, there is very little data on the needs and behaviours of Irish children. This evaluation will not only tell us if the intervention is effective or not, it will also provide much needed data on disadvantaged groups of society.’
The Preparing for Life (PFL) programme is jointly-funded by Atlantic Philanthropies and the Office of the Minister for Children and run by the Northside Partnership. It is one of a series of early childhood interventions which have recently been initiated in Ireland with the ambition of changing the life outcomes for children who are at risk. Dr. Orla Doyle is leading the team from the Geary Institute who are conducting the evaluation.
