The Minister for Children, Disability and Equality, Norma Foley TD, has today announced a €330,000 investment in new measures designed to strengthen prevention and early intervention services for children so every child and young person across Ireland experiencing disadvantage, adversity and trauma has access to timely support.
This funding represents a strategic investment in the futures of Ireland’s children. Children and young people growing up with disadvantage, trauma, or exclusion face barriers that can affect their health, learning, and future potential. But when support comes early and is built on strong evidence it can transform lives.
Grants of up to €30,000 will be made available to community and voluntary sector organisations working with children and young people through a prevention and early intervention approach.
This funding is made available through the What Works initiative, funded by the Dormant Accounts Fund, and reflects the Department’s ongoing commitment to ensuring that services for children are based on the best available data, research and innovation
Minister Foley said:
“I am delighted to announce this suite of measures which reflect our commitment to early intervention and innovation in children’s services. My Department strives to continuously enhance the quality of prevention and early intervention services so every child and young person is given the best start in life.”
This funding will support:
- An invitation for applications to the Enhancing Quality Fund 2025, which support organisations to improve the monitoring, evaluation and analysis of their prevention and early intervention initiatives.
- An online series of webinars targeting commissioners, practitioners and anyone interested in applying evidence-based research to support the development of prevention and early intervention policy and services.
- Research funding to evaluate the development, piloting and implementing of a Prevention and Early Intervention model that has been designed to embed a prevention-oriented, child-centred mindset across professional disciplines working with children and families.
ENDS//
Notes for the Editor
1. Enhancing Quality Fund 2025
The 2025 Enhancing Quality Fund aims to promote continuous improvement and innovation using a process of problem-solving in prevention and early intervention services for children and young people
Successful applicants will support the What Works initiative to build on the development of implementation structures and learning harnessed from over a decade of investment in prevention and early intervention in order to improve outcomes for children, young people and their families.
The fund is open to practitioners and service providers in not-for-profit organisations working with children, young people and their families and who have a strong emphasis on prevention and early intervention.
These grants will support organisations to support the effective use of data in service provision for children and young people around Ireland.
Further information can be found at the following link: https://whatworks.gov.ie/enhancing-quality-fund-2025/
2. What Works/Foundations Online Prevention and Early Intervention Webinars
This series of four ninety-minute online interactive webinars is designed for commissioners, practitioners and anyone interested in applying evidence-based research and will be delivered by Foundations – the what works centre for children and families (UK).
Foundations developed the What Works Ireland Evidence Hub. The What Works Ireland Evidence Hub provides information about prevention and early intervention programmes that have been evaluated and shown to improve outcomes for children and young people.
These workshops will take place between July 2025 and October 2025.
For further details and to register please visit:
11 July 2025: The value and purpose of different research designs for understanding
what works (Click here to register)
In this webinar we’ll be explaining why different kinds of research are needed to understand how interventions work, and why robust trials are needed to understand What Works. We’ll explore the advantages and limitations of different kinds of research evidence; the difference between evidence strength, evidence standards and evidence hierarchies; and why experimental evidence is typically prioritised for identifying ‘what works’.
19 September 2025: 10 Steps for Evaluation Success: Turning science-based theories into effective interventions (Click here to register)
In this webinar, we’ll discuss how evaluation can help improve the quality of interventions at each stage of their development and explain how the 10 steps map onto the Evidence Hub evidence standards. These steps include developing a theory of change, early stage and pilot evaluation, trials to find out what works, and scaling up.
3 October 2025: Improving the home learning environment (Click here to register)
