Working closely with key school staff and parents to identify and resolve school attendance issues.

The Cable Project is a community based, multi agency youth crime prevention initiative which primarily seeks to divert young people who have been involved in anti-social and/or criminal behaviour by providing suitable activities to facilitate personal development, promote civic responsibility and improve long term employability prospects. My role as SYO is to:- oversee the development and implementation of the new service model which has expanded to include young people under 12, young people over 18 and to incorporate Family Support;- support and supervise staff to design and implement programmes; and- establish structures and responses required for enhanced coordination.

Targeting and engaging young people involved in, or at risk of becoming involved in, criminal activities, in a process of learning and development that enables them to examine their offending behaviours, enhance their employability and sense of civic responsibility, so that they can be diverted from the criminal justices system.

In July 2015 I moved to the Training Learning and Development function within Foróige. This role involves designing and delivering in-service training to staff such as staff induction, programme design and logic model training. I also facilitate programme training to staff, volunteers and external agencies across Ireland. Programmes include REAL U (sex education and personal development programme), NFTE (Youth Entrepreneurship programme) and Leadership.

The main aim of this position was to enable young people to involve themselves consciously and actively in their own development and the development of society. I did this through providing support, programme development and training to existing voluntary clubs and by helping to establish new clubs. My role put specific emphasis on establishing and supporting Foroige clubs within Tallaght and liaising with the other youth officers to aid this process - which involved recruiting, training and consulting with new and existing volunteers and supporting the District Council. Training for adult volunteers included Child Protection, Starting Out, Challenging Behaviour, Citizenship, Programme Development and accredited First Aid training. I also provided training to young people for example; leadership, committee skills, older member, peer mentor, student council and team building training.I provided a range of direct work programmes including the NFTE and Leadership programmes, I co-facilitated the South Dublin Comhairle na N-Og and I researched, designed, implemented and evaluated summer programmes in conjunction with the young people. I worked as part of a team of club-workers in Tallaght Youth Service and I also worked with the Regional Youth Officers at certain events throughout the year such as; the National Leaders Conference, Regional Conference and Citizenship events. I was also a caseworker for the BBBS programme, supporting matches to build meaningful relationships. Fundraising was also an important part of my job. I have been part of the sub-committee to design the NFTE manual and was part of the working group to develop the ‘Foróige Juniors’ documents.

This role was for two days a week in Drogheda and it had four main elements:- Facilitating a Leadership Group (Albert Schweitzer Leadership for Life) with 15-17 year olds, training youth workers to facilitate the programme and support them in rolling the programme out in their own groups;- Facilitating an Entrepreneurship Group (NFTE - Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship) with 12-17 year olds, training youth workers to facilitate the programme and support them in rolling the programme out in their own groups;- Providing administrative support to the rolling out of PX2 and STEPS in a secondary school; and- Co-ordinating a Mini Enterprise Programme in conjunction with other local agencies in Drogheda.

I secured a 2 day week maternity contract in Foróige's Best Practise Unit on our NFTE Team. The NFTE programme (Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship) is a world recognised, youth entrepreneurship education and development programme. It is managed and provided by Foróige in Ireland and is affiliated to NFTE International, whose headquarters are located in New York. Foróige NFTE is committed to changing the lives of young people in disadvantaged communities by enabling them to develop core skills in business and enterprise. Foróige NFTE operates in-school and out-of-school programmes, both of which have been shown to be successful in building self confidence and interpersonal skills in young people as well as increasing school completion and college attendance rates. each participant of the programme comes up with a business idea, sells their product/service, devises a business plan, presents their business plan to a panel of judges and graduates from the programme in the Helix, DCU. My responsibilities in this role included: • Facilitating the Alumni students to progress their businesses and to meet at regular intervals throughout the year to participate in workshops designed to enhance their development. This also involved developing and maintaining corporate links to support the work.• Supporting certified entrepreneurial teachers to facilitate the programme. This involves consulting with them on a regular basis, sending them up-to-date information regarding the programme and its deadlines and also to enable them to problem solve.• Organising the International and National finals.• Organising the National Awards ceremony in the helix.

My duties include rolling out training across the country in Foroige’s manualised programmes e.g. REAL U, Leadership and Citizenship along with Outcomes Focussed Training. I am also involved in proof-reading new programmes e.g. Health and Well-Being, designing new programmes e.g. Lead for Purpose, and general administration involved with the aforementioned duties. A major part of this administration is organising locations for training programmes, liaising with external facilitators and training attendees, prepping materials, conducting evaluations, writing reports on evaluations, inputting information into correlate and general correspondence regarding queries around these programmes.

My main responsibilities in this role were to plan, implement and evaluate schemes of work and lesson plans. I was also Class Tutor to a Junior Certificate class and I coached the school basketball teams.

I worked in JJB's fitness centre part-time as I completed my final year of college and progressed into the Trainee Duty Manager role once I finished college in May 2006. My responsibilities included teaching fitness classes including spinning, dance aerobics, aqua aerobics and toning classes. I also devised fitness plans for clients and helped them to achieve the best from the facilities. I prioritised improving customer relations and increasing membership sales while also supervising staff, time-tabling classes and devising staff rosters.