Education

Schools

Lifestart

What is Lifestart?
Lifestart is a community-based, child-centered and child-directed programme which offers a 5-year curriculum for parents. It is respectful of community cultures and focuses on the holistic development of children from birth to 5 years. Parents are seen as the prime educators and the home as the primary environment for child and parent development.

How did Lifestart begin?
Sisters of Mercy have been to the forefront in the planning and development of Lifestart. Sr Dolores McGuinness, RSM, was a founding member of Lifestart Foundation in Derry in 1989. The Foundation is the overarching body to which all other Lifestart programmes are affiliated and contracted. The Foundation sets Guidelines; ensures that Quality Standards are upheld; reviews Training; and evaluates the project.

Sisters of Mercy have provided substantial funding for the programme, especially in the early years when funding was crucial to its successful establishment.

The mission of Lifestart is "to educate and empower parents of children from birth to the age of five so that these children are enabled to reach their potential."

Day-to-day work in running a Lifestart programme involves:

• Guiding and supporting parents, enabling them to develop their role to the fullest. Group activities for parents and children together, and for parents only, are held on a regular basis
• Bringing age-related materials (toys, books and tapes) to the home by the family visitor. The family visitor has been trained by Lifestart to inform, encourage and support parents/carers by providing them with information which researchers and scientists have discovered about the growth and development of children
• Offering a cost free, voluntary and open invitation to all families. It is delivered by the family visitor on a monthly basis

Lifestart programmes operate all over Ireland but there is a much heavier concentration in the North of the Country.

Lifestart Projects in Ireland

1. Derry
2. Limavady
3. Belfast
4. Mid-Ards
5. Downpatrick
6. Drogheda
7. Dublin
8. Offaly/Kildare/Edenderry
9. Athy
10. Wexford
11. Sligo
12. Enniskillen/Irvinestown
13. Tir Boghaine
14. Newtowncunningham
15. Lifford
16. Strabane

There are also projects running in Barcelona and Macedonia.

The programme is cross-community and cross-border and individual projects are managed by the communities in the areas in which they operate. Sr Mary deLacy from Enniskillen is one of the few Sisters who actually now work on individual projects. Lifestart's base, Westville Family Resource Centre Ltd, is at 3 Westville Terrace, Enniskillen. Since 2001 the project has had an outreach worker in Irvinestown as part of the Cherish Surestart initiative. Current users include 150 children/111 families from the Enniskillen area and 64 children and 47 families in the Irvinestown area.

Contact: Sr Dolores McGuinness (Lifestart Foundation)
Sr Mary deLacy (Westville Family Resource Centre)

Tel: 028 85548127 (Lifestart Foundation)
028 85548127 (Westville Family Resource Centre)

Involvement in Third Level Education

Sr Mary Loye, a Sr of Mercy from Newry, Co Down, now lectures in the Department of Theology and Religions Studies at Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick. Theology and Religious Studies is offered to degree level as part of the four-year Liberal Arts joint-honours programme. Modules are taught in Biblical Studies; Systematic Theology; Morality and Religion; Theology of Religions and Inter-religious Dialogue.

Tullamore Children In Need

This project, which includes Tullamore and the surrounding area, was set up to help relieve financial stress where genuine need may cause children to suffer. The project offers a split site pre-school service for Travellers and receives finance from voluntary bodies; public donations; Sisters of Mercy, Northern Province; Sisters of Mercy, Tullamore, grants from Health Board, Tullamore Social Services. FAS fund the wages of the assistants in the pre-schools.

Contact: Sr Xavier O'Brien
Email: mercynth.province@btinternet.com

SPRED

SPRED is a network of parish-based groups which includes adults with learning disabilities. A SPRED group is like a basic Christian community. One of its overall aims is to integrate people with Learning Disabilities into the faith, community and liturgical life of a parish. It is a catechetical programme without being instruction or classroom based. It is also a wonderful and very effective Adult Faith Formation Programme for those who volunteer to become catechists on groups.

Networks of SPRED groups exist in the Dioceses of Down & Connor, Armagh and Derry. Membership is voluntary, and groups usually meet once weekly. Several Sisters of Mercy are members of groups in all three Dioceses. For further information contact Sr Criona Considine (Dominican Sister) or Margaret Purcell at 028 85548127