Higher Education Authority Centre Programme (01.01.2024 - 31.12.2026)
A three-year programme of research funded by the Higher Education Authority is being carried out by the Centre’s core staff. The research focuses on the implementation of policy. Policy topics that will be covered include hospital services, child poverty, housing, and education.
Under the three-year programme, the following projects are being developed:
Evaluation of the four Local Area Child Poverty Action Plan pilot areas. The pilots aim to achieve better service integration and improve access to available services for disadvantaged children, young people, and their families. This work is supported by the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth’s (DCEDIY) What Works initiative which receives its funding from the Dormant Accounts Fund (DAF), managed by the Department of Rural and Community Development.
The four local pilots are:
• Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown and Wicklow Children and Young People’s Service Committees and Dun Laoghaire Rathdown and Wicklow Local Community and Development Committee
• Kildare Children and Young People’s Service Committees and Kildare Local Community and Development Committee
• Monaghan Children and Young People’s Service Committees and Monaghan Local Community and Development Committee
• Tipperary Children and Young People’s Service Committees and Tipperary Local Community and Development Committee
In collaboration with Respond, a leading Approved Housing Body and service provider, CIRcUL will advise the implementation of their innovative approach to supporting communities alongside the social and cost rental housing they provide. The goal of this collaboration is to provide essential learning for what works, why it works, how to improve and how to critically replicate the successes of their best practices.
CIRcUL is supporting the working package related to Knowledge Transfer of the HRB-funded project "Maximise support for breastfeeding for sustainable population health and wellbeing: Integrated knowledge translation approach - MaxSBF", led by University College Cork.
Implementation Science studies undertaken by REPPP - Research Evidence into Policy, Programmes and Practice (2021 - 2027)
Johnny Connolly, The Local Leadership Programme
Jacqueline Dwane, The Relationship Study
Helen Fitzgerald, No Wrong Door: Supporting Young People with Complex Needs
Alphonce Omolo, Youth Justice Strategy 2021-2027 Research
Aisling Reidy, No Wrong Door: Exploring Service Delivery and Complexity through the Voices of Young People, Parents, and Frontline Practitioners
Projects developed by CIRcUL members:
Arlene McCurtin, SPARC (Swallow Perspectives, Advocacy and Research Collective): SPARC is a solution-focused interdisciplinary, international network of clinicians and researchers focused on challenging clinical issues in the area of eating, drinking and swallowing to help improve clinical practice and policy-making. Impacts of SPARCs work on the intervention of thickened liquids, employed to reduce aspiration in people with swallowing disorders and beset by evidentiary, person centred and medical consequences, has led to a position statement from The Royal College of Speech & Language Therapists (2024) altering recommendations regarding this intervention, and a targeted grant call from the (National Institutes of Health Research) focused on de-implementation of the intervention (2024).