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Meath Children’s Services Committee

Children and Young People’s Plan 2012 - 2015

This document is a template prepared by the Centre for Effective Services on behalf of the OMCYA and the NCSIG November 2010

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Contact “The Meath Children’s Services Committee welcomes comments, views and opinions about our Children and Young People’s Plan. Please contact: Meath CSC Coordinator, Mr. Leonard Callaghan at [email protected] Children & Family Services, Enterprise Centre, Trim Road, Navan, Co. Meath. (046) 9097844 (087) 6441418

Copies of this plan are available on: www.

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Contents Foreword ...... 4 Section 1: Introduction ...... 5 Background to the CSC initiative and policy context ...... 6 Who we are ...... 7 Achievements to date ...... 8 How the Children and Young People’s Plan was developed...... 8 Section 2: Socio-Demographic Profile of ...... 10 Section 3: Overview of Services to Children and Families in County Meath ...... 44 Section 4: Local Needs Analysis in County Meath ...... 47 Section 5: Summary of Children and Young People’s Plan for County Meath ...... 48 Section 6: Action Plan for Meath Children’s Services Committee ...... 49 Section 7: Monitoring and Review ...... 66 Section 8: Appendices ...... 67

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Foreword Meath Children’s Services Committee

Foreword

Children’s Services Committees are a local county based structure for bringing together agencies who work with children to engage in joint planning of services for children. Meath Children’s Services Committee has been in existence for the past year.

Through the membership of our Committee, we are committed to arriving at a joint understanding with services and service users of the issues, which impact on the well being of children and families in Meath. In our working together, our focus is to ensure that statutory agencies, and community and voluntary services secure better developmental outcomes for children in Meath through more effective integrations of existing services and interventions at local level.

To achieve this, we have worked together to develop the Meath Children and Young People’s Plan 2012-2015 in line with local needs and the 5 National outcome areas for children. All members of the committee have contributed to the development of the plan and we are committed to delivering on the objectives, indicators, targets and activities under each of the priority areas identified.

As joint chairs of the Meath Children’s Services Committee we warmly welcome the plan and thank our Committee and working group members for their contributions to date. We are committed to the growth and development of our Committee over the next 3 years. We will work to ensure that our achievements will have long term positive impacts on children and families in Meath, so that our children can grow up in families and inclusive local communities where they are healthy, happy and secure. The bonds and relationships between people in Meath are strong and have served us well in the past. Let us now, at a time when our county is suffering from economic downturn and services are facing funding challenges, commit to working together to ensure that our children will celebrate and remember our efforts on their behalf.

Sean Boylan Joint Chairs, Meath Children’s Services Committee Mary Hargaden

October, 2012

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Section 1: Introduction

The purpose of the Children’s Services Committees is to secure better developmental outcomes for children through more effective integration of existing services a