Advocacy & Policy Reports
Permanent URI for this collection
Browse
Recent Submissions
Item Models of Advocacy: A Study of the Models of Advocacy and the Practice of them within International Children’s Organizations(Barnardos, 2002) Shea, Courtney C.For any organization that champions the rights of others, advocacy plays a major role in bringing about change. This report will examine what advocacy is, the different types of advocacy, and the different models of advocacy including case studies to illustrate each model, as well as how Barnardos uses these different models. The information contained in this report is based on data, statistics, and information on the advocacy practices of international children’s organizations. Finally, conclusions will be drawn about what advocacy models are best for successful advocacy.Item The Case for Investment in Prevention and Early Intervention(Barnardos and others, 2010) Murphy, CandyCrime cannot be viewed as a social problem in isolation from deeper social and economic issues. Understanding and responding to offending behaviour is a complex issue. There is no one ‘cause’ and no single solution; consequently one-dimensional approaches are unlikely to produce results. The Irish criminal justice system is spending increasing and wasteful amounts of scarce resources with poor results in reducing crime, when modest investments in under-resourced communities would have greater positive effects in reducing offending, as well as producing wider social benefits. What Ireland needs now is long-term vision and radical and fresh thinking about this issue. We need to heed what the evidence is telling us and take a coordinated approach to tackling social exclusion. In particular, emphasis needs to shift from an almost exclusively punitive reaction to crime to one that is preventive, progressive and ultimately more effective. The review of the literature presented here makes a strong case for making the shift in resources from criminal justice to social justice, thereby creating better communities and a safer society for all.Item Cost Of Living Crisis - Impact on Children: Summary(Barnardos, 2023) BarnardosWe have produced a report highlighting the growing impact that cost of living increases are having on children across the country. It sets out findings of a nationally representative survey of parents (315) conducted by Amarach Research and also includes the voices of 30 parents currently supported through Barnardos services who participated in 1 to 1 interviews, both carried out in April this year.Item Cost of Living Crisis - Impact on Children(Barnardos, 2023) BarnardosWe have been monitoring the impact of cost of living increases on families and children over the past 18 months. This report outlines the impact that cost of living increases has had on children and families across the country over the past six months, through a nationally representative survey of parents (315) carried out by Amarach Research and 30 one to one interviews with parents who are currently supported through Barnardos services, both conducted in April this year. We outline in detail the number of families who are cutting back and going without due to increases in cost of living, the struggles families are facing and the impact it is having on their children. We set out the immediate and longer-term solutions the government should adopt to combat this crisis1. All case studies and parental quotes are taken directly from parents interviewed or Barnardos front line staff. The findings below show that families across the country are struggling to provide their children with essentials such as heating, electricity, food and clothing. Many families are constantly trying to keep their heads above water, living day to day, struggling to keep their children from being pulled into deprivation. For some, the cost of living crisis has drastically affected their standard of living and the quality of their childhood.Item Tomorrow's Child in an Age ot Austerity(Barnardos, 2011) Harvey, BrianIn autumn 2008, on the eve of Ireland’s economic collapse, Barnardos published Tomorrow’s child. The picture it painted was one of an Ireland in which four-fifths of children led reasonably prosperous lives: they were in good health, well educated, ambitious and had strongly embraced and were competent in the new technologies. In an international perspective, Ireland was a positively rated environment for children, one of the happiest in Europe. Despite the economic changes of the celtic tiger, family life and structures were remarkably stable, with most children belonging to two-parent families and marriage more popular than ever. Families were becoming smaller, typically one to two children, with parents marrying and parenting from their early 30s. This picture was blemished by child poverty, with a fifth of children living in poverty, concentrated in alienated working class communities; a poorly performing education system; serious shortfalls in children’s services; a significant proportion with health problems; and particular groups at high risk of disadvantage, such as Travellers. Three years later, many aspects of this picture are still recognizable. The ‘baby boom’ of the early 2000s continues unaffected, requiring an expansion of primary and then secondary education in the coming years. Although immigration has fallen off sharply, it has by no means stopped and most of the new communities remain in Ireland to stay. The most dramatic changes have been the resumption of high emigration, 76,400 in the past year, and unemployment, 14%. Diminished prospects for children and young people will have a corrosive effect. The most educated will travel to distant, even antipodal destinations, a new brain drain. But there is little for those without such advantages. The financial collapse, especially the dramatic rise in unemployment, from 4% to 14%, has put families with children under enormous pressure, while others, due to pay cuts, face a rapid rise in debt, utility arrears and increasing difficulty in meeting educationrelated costs and charges. Decisions by government have, it can be argued, made the situation for children much more difficult. Cuts in welfare rates immediately affected the standard of living of all welfare-claiming families, while the reduction in child benefit will in time force child poverty rates upward. Those children most immediately impacted were those who lost teachers and educational resources, especially those with disabilities and Travellers. Key institutional and agency ‘champions’ for the welfare of children were abolished, making children less visible in the policy-making chain. The budget for already inadequate children’s welfare services was further reduced. Voluntary and community organisations working with children suffered disproportionate reductions in their budgets at a time when demands on them soared and donations fell. The short-term future for families with children promises to be, for a majority difficult and for a minority, grim. The IMF programme envisages substantial further cuts in state and public services, much lower levels of child support, with an even sharper squeeze on household incomes. Unlike previous cuts, the IMF programme targets welfare and education and will inflict much more damage than earlier comparators. The state will become ever less competent. Foreign comparisons suggest that the process of impoverishment will last much longer than government expects. This is childhood in an age of austerity. Even still, some long-term social trends are likely to continue relatively independently of the country’s economic fortunes or misfortunes. A growing part of the school system will become independent of the catholic church. Few children will attend religious services and most will marry in civil ceremonies. Children, already adept at mastering new technologies, will increasingly live online. Science may become a more important driver of career choices and life changes. The new communities will continue to integrate into the Irish educational system and drive up its standards. Demographers and futurologists predict an Ireland which has both a youthful and an ageing population, with significant environmental and landscape change. The fundamental challenge posed by the original Tomorrow’s child (2008) remains. As long as Ireland persists with its current model of development, then services and standards for children are likely to remain inadequate and divide Irish children between a prospering majority and a suffering minority experiencing hardship. International example and our own previous experience suggests that there is a real danger that the one fifth of Irish children who have poor economic, social and educational prospects will grow to a quarter, or worse. The financial collapse does provide an opportunity to reflect on and consider alternative solutions. These lie in halting the impact of austerity on the poor and in following more enlightened continental European models of social development that would achieve more positive outcomes for all children.