More than 120 parents in the Edenderry area of Co Offaly have signed up for an educational home-based project which has shown many benefits for parents and children in other areas. It is the first such scheme in the midlands.
The Offaly Lifestart Project is a pilot scheme specifically for parents of children up to five years old. It involves trained visitors coming to their homes to advise on the development of their children.
The programme was devised by Dr Sean O Conchuir, a teacher and curriculum specialist at Magee University in Derry, who piloted the scheme in the Connemara Gaeltacht. Since then, the Ballymagroarty Family Centre has been established in Derry, and there are now Lifestart Projects in Enniskillen, Sligo, Dublin, Belfast, Coleraine, Strabane. Lifford, Cork and Wexford.
The facilitators pay monthly visits to the families, according to its co-ordinator, Mary Tedders, who works with the OAK partnership in Offaly.
"We have a number of trained visitors here who will bring information and age-appropriate learning materials to the participating families. This is a community-based scheme which has a holistic approach to the family and the development of children, the personal development of the parents and also community development.
"While the Lifestart Project is too new to have been studied in relation to results, my understanding is that it has been a wonderful success," she said.
The information used in the programme is based on research undertaken by a team of educationalists and psychologists, and adapted to the needs of local communities.
The project is funded by Offaly VEC and the OAK partnership development organisation, and the Department of Adult and Community Education of the NUI in Maynooth.
"This programme is running very successfully in other parts of the country, but this will be the first one in the midlands, and we are already very pleased with the demand for it," she added.
To her the great success of the scheme is that it recognises the role of parents as the prime educators and the home as the primary institution for education.