The evolution of children's services in Ireland and prospects for the future: a personal perspective

Ireland is now the hub of much activity around children's services ‐ at central and local government levels, involving the primary statutory and voluntary agencies, and engaging some of the more disadvantaged communities. Previous articles in the series have looked at the origins and work of the government Office of the Minister for Children, which is overseeing the reform programme (Langford, 2007), the role of $200 million philanthropic investment in this work (Little & Abunimah, 2007) and how the new approach is translating into practice in local communities (Zappone, 2007).Here, Owen Keenan, former Chief Executive of Barnardos1, offers his personal perspective on the work. He starts by tracing how Ireland moved from having under‐developed services and limited suitable research capacity to having the potential within the next 10 years to become one of the best places in the world for children to grow up in. He highlights the roles played by international collaborations, indigenous advocacy (focused on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child) and philanthropic investment in helping to usher in a new paradigm of evidence‐based, outcome‐focused services. He then outlines the main challenges as he sees them if the potential is to be realised ‐ for example, improving relationships between stakeholders and strengthening service design and evaluation capacity. Finally, he summarises what has been learnt about undertaking (and undergoing) such farreaching change processes.