Here at the Childhood Development Initiative, we regularly conduct community research to understand the evolving needs of children and families in Tallaght. Since 2004, we have conducted a series of research studies, such as “How Are Our Kids?”, “How Are Our Families?” and “How Is Our Neighbourhood?”, which delves into the lived experiences of children and families in our local community. The findings from our community research play a pivotal role in shaping service delivery at both community and national levels. Key recent research includes studies on Child Poverty and Youth Mental Health.
Our Impact on Policy
CDI uses the wealth of information and evidence gathered to make relevant policy submissions, including contributions to the National Children’s Strategy in 2012, pre-budget submissions, presentations to the Oireachtas Committees, and submissions to various Government advisory groups. To promote transparency and accessibility, CDI shares the datasets from our evaluations through national repositories such as the Irish Social Science Data Archive.
Tallaght Research
- Being Dad: Fathers’ Voices on the Hopes and Struggles of Fatherhood 2021
- Climbing A Mountain – Parents Access to and Experience of Services in Tallaght West 2019
- How Is Our Neighbourhood? A Study of Community Engagement, Connectivity and Provision in Tallaght West 2017
- Perspectives and experiences of Covid-19: Two Irish studies of families in disadvantaged communities | PLOS ONE
- Conducting Peer Research: Learning From the Evaluation of a Parenting Support Intervention – Catarina Leitão, Jefrey Shumba, Tara Scott, 2023 (sagepub.com)
Child Poverty Research
Youth Mental Health Research
- The In-Betweeners: Identifying and Quantifying the Unmet Mental Health Needs of Children and Adolescents in Tallaght 2019
- Outreach interventions for difficult-to-engage adolescents with mental health needs 2021
- Scalable mental health interventions to support adolescents not in receipt of services 2020
Housing
- Housing Policy Development Lessons – A Tallaght West Case Study 2019
- Housing Policy Development Lessons – A Response by Tony Fahey 2019
- Housing Policy Development Lessons – Executive Summary 2019
Prisoner Families Research