In July 2025, the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality, Norma Foley, announced three initiatives to support prevention and early intervention programmes for children and young people in Ireland.1 They are being funded through the What Works prevention and early intervention initiative. As with previous activities under the What Works initiative, there are synergies with drug prevention activities.

What Works

What Works: Sharing Knowledge, Improving Children’s Futures is an initiative of the Department of Children and Youth Affairs (DCYA) that was launched in June 2019. It was a rebrand of the Quality and Capacity Building Initiative that the DCYA had been developing since 2016. What Works seeks to embed and enhance knowledge and quality in prevention and early intervention activities in children and young people’s policy, service provision, and practice. When it started, there were four core strands to the work: a data working strand; an evidence working strand; a professional development and capacity building working strand; and a quality working strand.2

2025 initiatives

The objective of the three new initiatives ‘is to support prevention and early intervention initiatives and research that will improve outcomes for children and young people experiencing disadvantage, adversity and trauma’.1 The three initiatives are described as follows:

1   The Enhancing Quality Fund 2025 aims to support organisations to improve the monitoring, evaluation, and analysis of their prevention and early intervention initiatives. It is open to not-for-profit organisations that work with children, young people, and their families, and that have a strong emphasis on prevention and early intervention. Grants of up to €30,000 are available, with a total fund value of €300,000. The closing date for applications was 22 August 2025.

2   Between July and October 2025, a series of four 90-minute webinars will be held that are aimed at commissioners, practitioners, and stakeholders interested in applying evidence-based research to support the development of prevention and early intervention policy and services.3 The webinars will be delivered by the United Kingdom-based organisation Foundations: What Works Centre for Children & Families. Foundations developed the What Works Ireland Evidence Hub, which provides information about prevention and early intervention programmes that have been evaluated and shown to improve outcomes for children and young people, including outcomes related to drug use.4

3   The Prevention and Early Intervention Network (PEIN) has developed a learning module aimed at professionals who work with children and families. It is ‘designed to embed a prevention-oriented, child-centred mindset across professional disciplines working with children and families’.1 The 10 learning units cover themes such as trauma-informed practice, interagency collaboration, and children’s rights. This third initiative provides research funding to evaluate the development, piloting, and implementation of this learning module.

1. Department of Children, Disability and Equality (2025) Minister for Children Disability and Equality Norma Foley announces €330,000 in funding to support Ireland’s Prevention and Early Intervention programmes for children and young people. Available from: https://www.drugsandalcohol.ie/43634/
2. Dillon L (2019) What Works: Sharing Knowledge, Improving Children’s Futures. Drugnet Ireland, 71 (Autumn): 9.
3. For more information on the webinar series and to register for the events, visit
   https://whatworks.gov.ie/resources/prevention-and-early-intervention-webinars-2025/.
4. The What Works Ireland Evidence Hub can be found at https://whatworks.gov.ie/hub-search/.