Having done and achieved a lot over 7 years, Start Strong has closed down and is winding up. Funded as a time-limited campaign since 2011, the time has come to pass on the baton.

Start Strong stood out from other early years organisations through our focus on children's rights. We built alliances wherever and whenever we could, and over the years worked with a range of NGOs (particularly children's organisations), as well as trade-unions, business organisations, political parties, parents and government officials. Through our advocacy and lobbying, we led to significant policy change in early years; changing the lives of young children in Ireland, now and into the future. We've published a ' look-back' over our 7 years, looking back over our campaigns - we hope it is interesting reading, and will be useful to other advocacy organisations and groups looking to change policy in Ireland.

It is perhaps fitting that as we are winding down, paid paternity leave is being rolled out as well as the extended free pre-school year, an affordable childcare scheme is being developed and a quality audit is to happen this year. And we're even promised the long-awaited National Early Years Strategy this year! The  Programme for Government, eventually published before the summer, isn't everything we lobbied for but it does commit to paid parental leave, subsidised childcare with funding conditional on quality, reform of childminding and somewhat limited investment in quality - all of which were part of our election campaign.

And while we have seen significant progress in early years policy in Ireland, we still lag far behind other countries. Quality continues to be variable across the country, early years professionals continue to work for minimum wage rates without job-security, parents still face unaffordable childcare costs and have little paid leave available. Things haven't changed enough for young children - we need to invest more, and invest it well.

While Start Strong are now closed down, we've helped set up a new post in the Children's Rights Alliance. Start Strong successfully achieved exit strategy funding for an Early Years Manager based in the Children's Rights Alliance, focused on early years. We're effectively 'mainstreaming' some of our work into a broader children's rights organisation. We hope that you will support them.

Liz Kerrins is the newly appointed Early Years Manager in the Children's Rights Alliance, while Toby Wolfe is seconded to the Department of Children and Youth Affairs. You can contact Liz at [email protected] or on (01) 6629400.

The Children's Rights Alliance will continue to publish an early years enewsletter - if you would like to opt-out of receiving further newsletters from the Children's Rights Alliance, please unsubscribe - otherwise we will assume you are happy to receive updates and newsletters on Early Years from the Children's Rights Alliance.

On a personal note, I would like to thank all of my colleagues on the staff team, Toby, Lorraine and Tressan as well as our Chairperson, Tony Crooks, and all of Start Strong's board members. And of course, a huge thanks to all of our supporters and everyone who helped us along the way. We could not have done it without you.

 

 

Ciairín de Buis

CEO, Start Strong