The What Works 2021 “Learning Together Fund” is designed to support community and voluntary organisations, or networks of statutory and non-government organisations, to promote increased understanding and use of evidence informed approaches to prevention and early intervention services for children, young people and their families.

What is What Works?
The What Works Initiative, funded under Dormant Accounts, aims to take a coordinated approach to enhance capacity, knowledge and quality in prevention and early intervention for children, young people and their families, with a focus on those at risk of developing poor outcomes.

The funding is being provided under the Evidence working strand and the professional development and capacity building strand of the What Works Initiative.

Evidence working strand:
The aim of this strand is to harness the learning from prevention and early intervention initiatives and research and actively support the use of this learning as a source and resource to inform planning, delivery, evaluation and continuous improvements.

Professional development and capacity building working strand:
The aim of this strand is to enhance the capacity and skills development of policymakers, providers and practitioners in the appraisal and application of evidence informed approaches in prevention and early intervention for children and young people through capacity building and development.

• The activities funded should focus on organising or accessing relevant learning, training sessions, workforce development opportunities while also putting a strong emphasis on future collaborations between peers and disseminating learning to larger audiences, including networks.
• All applications must have a focus on prevention and early intervention.
• Grant allocations will be minimum of €1,500 and maximum of €20,000 per year per applicant.  This means that an organisation may apply multiple times up to a maximum of €20,000. On-going funding will not be available.

Eligible Applicants
The fund is aimed at the community and voluntary sector, and coordinating networks such as Child and Family Support networks and Children and Young People’s Services Committees, who work with children, young people and their families and have a strong approach to prevention and early intervention.

The fund may be of interest to these groups who wish to access funding to support them to deliver on the ‘Evidence Working’ and ‘Professional Development and Capacity’ strands of the What Works initiative, by training in and running the evidence-based Parents Plus Programmes online and eventually in person.

Whether this be training in one of our age specific parenting programmes or our youth mental health programme, our evidence based tailored trainings will help you to reach and make a meaningful difference to families, children and young people.

Deadline:  Applications should be made to What Works by Monday 10 May 2021 at 9a.m., by email only to whatworks@equality.gov.ie  

Full details, including the application, guidance document and terms and conditions are available on the Government What Works website here

If, upon reviewing the What Works application and guidelines, your service is interested in applying for this fund, please contact us at cherie@parentsplus.ie, and we can provide you with relevant information on the Parents Plus evidence based programmes, impact and reach to support your application to What Works