Children in Co Monaghan have state of the art Childcare facilities thanks to government funding and dedicated staff of Monaghan Childcare Committee.
Monaghan Childcare Committee celebrated their 10th Anniversary last Saturday with a Conference on building self esteem in young children and the launch of a new booklet, Building Positive Futures. The booklet offers a directory of services, tips on choosing the best type of service for your child and some wonderful photographs of childcare buildings and children at play throughout Co Monaghan.
Over 100 parents, childcare providers and others working to support children and their families attended the conferencein the Four Seasons Hotel, funded though the National Lottery. A free crèche facility in the newly opened Glen Park Montessori and Day Care facility was made available to accommodate parents.
Since the establishment of the Childcare Committee backin 2001, there has been 29 purpose built childcare facilities spread across the County with another 8 receiving substantial funding for renovations.
During the past 10 years Monaghan Childcare Committee have supported the setting up and expansion of an early years industry that this County can be proud of.Over two thirds of theCrèches and Pre-schools operating within the County have successfully drawing down €12,800,000 grant aid for buildings and equipment in the last 10 years. As part of the Equal Opportunities Childcare Programme an additional €5.5 million was invested in the County through staffing grants and a further €5.7 million through the National Childcare Investment Programme through childcare subvention
Conference speakers included
Heather Humphries TD, who opened the conference to mark the10thanniversary said that this was anappropriate opportunity to look back, celebrate and acknowledge all the determination and hard work of the individuals and community groups who have worked extremely hard to develop a quality childcare infrastructure in Co. Monaghan. She also stated that it was important to point out that these developments would not have been possible if it were not for the hard work and dedication shown by the Board and Staff of Monaghan Childcare Committee in supporting those projects.
She continued by stating that the Childcare Committee collaborate with a number of local agencies including the HSE, FAS, VEC, Monaghan Integrated Development, Community Development groups as well as cross border projects. And that it is vital that there is a good working relationship between the Committee and these local agencies to ensure the maximum benefit for childcare services in the locality.
65% of the population of County Monaghan live in rural areas. In that respect the development of many rural services is also very welcome. Some of these services are privately owned and some managed by committees of volunteersDeputy Humphries paid tribute to all the hard work in having the vision and making the time and effort to access the funding so as to ensure parents and children in Co Monaghan can avail of first class child care facilities in state of the art buildings. She concluded by saying that Co Monaghan had been particularly successful in accessing funding and close to €30 million has been successfully secured over the past 10 years from European & Exchequer funding as well as getting funding from Peace for a variety of projects. Heather concluded by wishing the work of the Committee every success in the future because our children are our future.
Brendan Smith TD congratulated the Childcare Committee on its 10 years of dedication and hard work. In his time as Minister for Children he worked hard to bring about some of the dedicated childcare buildings throughout the County now outlined in the booklet and that he was delighted to asked to celebrate the 10thAnniversary and to see the results of hard work and dedication.
He stated that “The Childcare Committee has promoted the concept of quality childcare by providing support in the form ofadvice, training and networking and also by contributing to policy development at a national level. Childcare providers, and parents and children in the region, have benefited greatly from your efforts over the years and it is my hope that this will continue to be the case in the future.”
Breda Mc Kenna, Co-ordinator with Monaghan Childcare in her presentation outlined the changes that have taken place in the last 10 years in relation to childcare infrastructure throughout the County. This includes dedicated buildings, numbers of staff employed in services and qualifications of those staff.
Since 2001 the number of facilities has doubled with close to 2500 children now attending on a daily basis. Many of the services in existence in 2001 have changed from pre-school only to offering full day care which allows parents to go to work or return to education.
The biggest change is in the type of facility with 52 dedicated childcare buildings now, a mixture of privately owned and Committee Managed. One third of all pre-school services(20) are adjacent to Primary schools. Rural areas of the County are very well catered for with 31 Community Managed services, many of which now offer parenting courses as well as operating the various Government schemes. She presented a map produced courtesy of the It Department of Monaghan County Council which demonstrated how well the County is catered for in terms of childcare provision. .
She outlined how the focus of the work of Childcare Committee staff had changed during the past 10 years from supporting childcare services to access funding and building their premises to the introduction ofvarious government schemes such as Childcare Subvention, Early Childhood Care and Education Scheme (ECCE) and Childcare Employment and Training SupportCETS).
Ms Mc Kenna concluded her presentation by outlining the continuing work of the Childcare Committee staff to support Childcare Providers and parents.
Neil O’Brien is in the business of helping people change in work and life. He inspires teams and organisations to achieve results, to grow in confidence and succeed even more.
At the conference on Saturday last he captivated the audience with his humorous yet poignant message about self worth and that everybody had a talent, yet most of us don’t recognise it in our selves. He went on to say that it was veryimportant for parents to give children opportunities to find and develop their talent.
Children of Threemilehouse Community Playgroup.along with their Leader, Siobhan Keenan, stole the show with their rendition of the Play song, written by Aisling Mc Cormilla to launch Play week in the County .
Monaghan Childcare Committee along with other County Childcare Committees in the region is working with the Border Counties Childcare Network to develop a play week. Thisweek is designated play week for the region with a number of activities planned such as a flash mob on Tuesday in Ballybay. The performance by the children on Saturday was truly uplifting and a reminder that working for the benefit of children is one of the most rewarding things we do.
Dr Paul Gaffney, Senior Clinical Psychologist with the HSE, Dublin North East works in the National High Support and Special Care Service, based at RathnaNog in Castleblayney, Co. Monaghan.Paul has worked for the last 11 years in child & adolescent mental health and is a very experienced practitioner. In his presentation Paul outlined 21Tips for promoting Resilience/Self-esteemin young children.
1When talking about past events, focus on more positive events (eg, exams passed, good stories re child/friends, achievements, human qualities)
2Remember that we are all better and worse at some things and none of us can be good at everything all the time, keeping trying is more important
3Responding to events (eg, problems with friends, bullying, disappointments) is more important than the events themselves as we can sometimes only respond or tolerate a situation, try to model this for your child in how you respond to and/or tolerate situations
4Help the young person see that there is very rarely only one explanation for any event
5Distraction techniques can be useful….often keeping trying at the task is more important than doing it perfectly
6Think about what is Good Enough in any given task, and break tasks down into smaller do-able stages (eg, “ladder” & studying for exams)
7Help your child see that we can always dispute positive and negative causes, it can be helpful to do this out loud or on paper or even through music.
8If a thought or situation is threatening to overwhelm the teenager, encourage them not to continue to focus on it by some of these techniques, if this persists, seek help
9Keep talking to them about the future and ask questions about the future and what they would desire, even if these are only pipe dreams
10Encourage them to do activities that are future focused
11Focus on effort rather than achievement when praising
12Be constructive with comments….remember there is rarely only one explanation for anything !
13If you are stuck, how would their heroes cope in a difficult situation or deal with setbacks/disappointments?
14Can you think of examples of the power of hope and optimism in life to explain this to young people?
15What kept you going at this stage in your life?
16Give the child opportunities to do activities they enjoy and are good at…remember no child is good at or enjoys everything
17Believe it or not, sometimes just spending time with the children doing nothing in particular is good for them, and good for you
18Always tell you child what you want them to do, not what you don’t want them to do
19Be patient with them and with yourself
20Practice forgiveness with them and with yourself, we will all make mistakes and get things wrong
21If you are parenting by yourself, take extra care of yourself and if there are two parents, disagreements are not to be avoided as long as you resolve these
Bernie Bradley, Chairperson of Monaghan Childcare Committee closed the conference by outliningthe structure of the Board which worked on behalf of the Office of the Minister for Children & Youth Affairs to develop childcare facilities in Co Monaghan.
She stated that it is a truly collaborative Board where all stakeholders were represented and worked .She thanked the staff who she felt had worked vey hard under the direction of the Committee and with 98% of 3 year old children attending pre-school services in the County, we can be very proud of our childcare industry. Bernie concluded by outlining the work that still needs to be done in supporting childcare services and parents in relation to Siolta, the National Quality Framework and Aistear, the Curriculum Framework
The booklet Building Positive Futures and other resources such as the books on self esteem mentioned by Dr Paul Gaffney are available from Monaghan Childcare Committee, 17 The Grange, Plantation Walk, Monaghan 047 72896 or emailing