- Funding Programme
- Year
- 2022
Towards a new governance framework for children and youth policies in Ireland
The European Commission provided support to the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (DCEDIY) in Ireland, to implement the European Child Guarantee and the successor, whole-of-government policy framework for children and young people (known as Young Ireland) in a consistent and coherent manner. Concretely, assistance was provided to review and propose measures to strengthen current policy and governance arrangements for tackling child poverty and improving outcomes for children and young people. The project is expected to strengthen evidence-informed approaches, promote inter-agency cooperation and reinforce accountability mechanisms and policy monitoring tools in Ireland’s child and youth sector.
Context
Over the past decade, Ireland has introduced significant reforms to reduce child poverty and promote better outcomes for children and young people. In 2018, Ireland launched “First 5”, its first strategy for early childhood. To support efforts across government to deliver for children and young people, Ireland implemented the 2014-2020 National Policy Framework for Children and Young People, “Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures” (BOBF) and the 2015-2020 National Youth Strategy. Ireland also adopted a Child and Youth Participation Strategy 2019-2023. In 2021, Ireland initiated the process to design and implement the successor policy framework to BOBF, known as “Young Ireland”, to ensure a coordinated, whole-of-government policy response to the issues affecting children and young people.
Support delivered
The technical support was provided by way of the following activities:
- An assessment of the current situation and challenges in Ireland, on the basis of information, data and insights collected through a variety of methods;
- Collecting and reviewing EU and OECD good policy practices in the thematic area(s) of the project (namely, cross-sectoral and inter-departmental approaches to child and young people services delivery);
- Identify actionable recommendations for improvement in the field of stakeholder cooperation and engagement;
- Organise stakeholder consultations, including interviews, questionnaires and workshops;
- Define a strategy to fine-tune and upscale promising pilot initiatives;
- Develop proposals to strengthen monitoring and evaluation efforts and tools to track policy implementation and report on their impact;
- Deliver capacity-building activities to foster expertise and technical know-how, specifically in the field of indicator development and impact assessment.
Results achieved
The project has resulted in an Action Plan with targeted recommendations to enable the implementation of the successor policy framework to Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures 2015-2020 (known as Young Ireland), and additional recommendations to improve monitoring and evaluation efforts in the field of child and youth polices. In the medium term, it is expected that the Irish authorities shall adopt the recommendations to foster children and youth policy effectiveness, and implement the new measures and policy actions formulated throughout the project within the National Plan to implement the European Child Guarantee and Young Ireland’s implementing structures.
In the long term, the actions and recommendations provided by the project are expected to contribute to a more effective and coordinated policy approach to tackle child poverty and improve outcomes for children and young people in Ireland.