Supports set up for children at risk of dropping out of school and being sucked into criminal gangs
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Two programmes have been set up in Drogheda, Co Louth, to support children at risk of dropping out of school and being sucked into criminal gangs.
While one of the projects is a pilot and is being currently reviewed, the second programme is “operating at maximum capacity”, with a waiting list of young people looking for support.
The projects are among a number of initiatives being progressed by the Drogheda Implementation Board, which was set up in October 2021.
This interagency body was established on the back of a scoping report ordered by the Government in the wake of the murder and dismemberment of 17-year-old Keane Mulready Woods in the town in January 2020.
The scoping report was conducted by former Probation Service boss Vivian Geiran and published in March 2021, along with a Department of Justice implementation plan.
It explored the trauma the murder of the juvenile was having on young people in the area. It also detailed the devastating impact the drug trade, gang violence and drug-related intimidation had on Drogheda and the wider economic and mental health neglect in the area.
The Drogheda Implementation Board’s third progress report, covering January-June 2023, shows while many recommendations were being implemented, others were still awaited.
The publication of the report by the Department of Justice comes as Justice Minister Helen McEntee announced the establishment of a similar Ballymun implementation board to deal with “deep-rooted” issues in the north Dublin suburb.
The Drogheda progress report said the Family Support, Children, Young People and Education subgroup of the board had noticed the lack of interventions for young people aged 12-15 in the area who have, or may be at risk of, dropping out of school and potentially engaging in anti-social or criminal behaviour.
Two initiatives have begun, with the Louth Meath Education Training Board developing a proposal, along with Tusla Education Support Services, for a pilot educational intervention programme.
The pilot identified 12 students and worked intensively with five of them and supported seven of them to engage with school life. It is currently being reviewed.
Youth organisation Foróige proposed the second programme after it successfully applied for funding from the Department of Justice’s Community Safety Innovation Fund.
The ‘New Choices’ project is described as an individualised alternative programme for young people aged 10-16 who have dropped out of school or at risk of doing so.
It started in March 2023 and is “already operating at maximum capacity”, the report said, with young people on a waiting list for supports.
The report said members of the subgroup identified early intervention as “the key” preventative strategy to address the factors that caused the Geiran report to be commissioned. It also said Extern, an all-island charity, had set up an intensive family support pilot in Drogheda.
It said the Department of Justice provided €530,000 to Drogheda's two youth diversion projects (Cable and Boyne) in 2021 and a further €115,000 to Boyne in 2022. It said the department was considering an application from Cable for a full-time early intervention worker.
The report said community policing in Drogheda had been “significantly strengthened”, but did not provide any supporting details.
It said the Louth Meath Education Training Board had succeeded in attracting a large-scale apprenticeship hub in Drogheda which will be able to offer 360 apprentice training places a year.
The report said plans to set up an inter-agency project for offenders in Drogheda were still being evaluated, a year on from a previous target date.
It said recommendations to explore setting up a joint out-of-hours Garda mental health response team was still on hold as it was contingent on a pilot in the Limerick division, which although planned to start before July 2020, was only supposed to be starting at the end of 2023.
Elsewhere, the report said a permanent needle exchange service, resourced by the HSE, had been set up at community addiction service Red Door and this project had also got a social worker, a Drug Court liaison worker and a project worker.
In relation to actions to review funding for the Family Addiction Support Network (FASN), which provides support to families, including the context of drug-related intimidation in the northeast, the report said the HSE gave it “once off” funding of €9,635 in May 2022 and an additional “once off” funding of €20,000 in December 2022.
However, it cites ongoing delays in the publication of evaluations of community and voluntary drug projects and strategy plans by the North East Regional Drug and Alcohol Task Force in establishing future funding for FASN.
The report also states actions in the plan for training on drug-related intimidation, involving FASN and gardaí, have been “postponed” as a separate national HSE-led project is being developed.
It said actions to increase the Deis status in four schools had not progressed as the schools were not identified as meeting the criteria set up a new Department of Education model.
But it said the department had allocated additional supports to the schools for a fixed term of five years in response to the needs identified in the Geiran report.
The report said the Department of Children was still considering the possibility of adopting a domestic violence programme operating in the UK. It added it had started this process in the 2021 implementation plan.
Under Operation Encompass in the UK, police share information with a child’s school where there has been a domestic incident at home.
The report said three Government departments, including the Department of Children, were giving “in-depth consideration” to legal advice on applying for the programme here.