Evaluating Integrated Responses to Educational Disadvantage (2000)

SECTION 1EXECUTIVE SUMMARYThe Demonstration Programme on Educational Disadvantage was set up initially for three years,1996 - 1999, by the Combat Poverty Agency. Under this programme, four local network groups,based in Drogheda (Co. Louth), Killinarden (Co. Dublin), Tralee (Co. Kerry) and Tuam (Co. Galway),were funded following a widely publicised competitive process. The aims of the networks were todevelop integrated, co-ordinated responses to the problems of educational disadvantage within theirareas and to contribute to influencing policy in relation to these issues. Following an interim evaluationreport on the programme in 1998, it was decided to extend the programme to the end of 2000.The main background to setting up the Demonstration Programme was growing concern with theissue of early school-leaving and mounting evidence of the relationship between educationalattainment and poverty. The Combat Poverty Agency started to develop a strategy for dealing witheducational disadvantage issues during the early 1990s. Subsequently, the Demonstration Programmebecame the main component of this strategy. Research, creating public awareness on educationaldisadvantage, and the development of a poverty awareness programme for school curricula were othercomponents of the programme.* At the time, a growing number of government initiatives focused on integrating local communityefforts to tackle pervasive social problems. These initiatives concerned long-term unemployment, localdrug problems, childcare matters and local and community development. The development of a localpartnership structure was an important organisational dimension to these initiatives. They broughttogether the main statutory and voluntary interests dealing with specific issues, alongside communitybodies and other persons directly affected by the issues. The Demonstration Programme adopted thismodel and was structured to support local network groups dealing with educational issues in the fourareas.* The Demonstration Programme emphasised the value of achieving more effective home-schoolcommunitylinkages and in particular of promoting and developing the roles of non-school communitybodies and parents in tackling children's educational needs. This approach was based on an analysisthat recognised that educational disadvantage grew out of a "discontinuity between the school andthe non-school experiences of disadvantaged children" 3 and that interventions needed to go beyond"conventional schooling".* Support for integrated approaches is evident across the literature spanning theory, policy and practice.The five papers written as part of the Demonstration Programme Policy Aspects of EducationalDisadvantages, discussed the theoretical and practical arguments for adopting an integrated approach* The Combat Poverty Agency supported the Demonstration Programme in the context of its widerstrategy to promote community development as an anti-poverty measure. Its model of communitydevelopment is one of supporting self-organised groups to take direct responsibility to initiateappropriate actions in response to local problems. Empowerment and participation are importantconcepts in this work. The Demonstration Programme was envisaged as a community developmentmeasure. Although the programme brought together personnel and bodies from other sectors, it wasbasically oriented towards promoting community development in tackling educational disadvantage.' Education and Poverty; Eliminating Disadvantage in the Primary School Years A Discussion Paper by: the Education Commission ofThe Conference of Major Religious SuperiorsEvaluating Integrated Responses( Evaluating Integrated Responses