RTE Toy Show Appeal Impact Report
Inspired by children, the RTE Toy Show Appeal works to bring the magic of the Late Late Toy Show to every child in Ireland. By funding essential support, health, well-being, play and creativity the aim is to change children’s lives for good.
Parents Plus are delighted to be featured in the Toy Show Impact Report as one of the lucky recipients of the funding chosen by #rtetoyshowappeal and The Community Foundation for Ireland.
This transformative grant supported our national collaboration with key parent support organisations to scale up the provision of Parents Plus evidence-based programmes online and to families across Ireland.
This national initiative is led by Dr Eileen Brosnan, Head of Practice and Implementation with Parents Plus.
She says many parents “struggle with complex family challenges around mental health, additional needs, disability, and divorce. This is in addition to the high stress of parenting in today’s society. We have been able to fund nationwide online programmes which we delivered with partners at the local and national levels. These programmes help build better parent-child relationships, reduce parent stress and ultimately help parents to feel more supported and heard.”
Dee Forbes, Director General, RTÉ said “The Late Late Toy Show experience was already iconic with Irish families and within Irish culture. With the addition of the RTÉ Toy Show Appeal, its power to add incredible value to the lives of children and families is immense”.
She went on to add the Community Foundation for Ireland, has “offered invaluable guidance throughout in terms of philanthropic expertise, their independent management of the grant process, and the disbursement of the funds raised to the successful grant organisations”.
Denise Charleton, Chief Executive of The Community Foundation for Ireland said that “feedback from those on the ground working with and supporting children every day informs all our work at The Community Foundation for Ireland, including RTÉ Toy Show Appeal” She also added that the “response to the funding themes from the first year of the appeal was extremely positive and they remained in place”.
In addition, The Foundation sought the advice of leading child experts, Tanya Ward CEO of The Children’s Rights Alliance, Fergal Landy CEO of the Family Resource Centre National Forum and Owen Keenan former CEO of Barnardos to review the recommended list of grants.
Cherie Tyner, CEO of Parents Plus said “we are thrilled that with the support of the RTÉ Toy Show Grant and the generosity of the public, we have been able to scale this life-changing pilot programme via our national partner organisations. This funding will play a crucial role in helping us expand the number of online Parents Plus Programmes delivered to parents through our partners Parentline and ADHD Ireland, and also through Family Carers Ireland, The National Parents Council and mid-west Family Resource Centres”.
Cherie also added that “through this grant, we initially acknowledged that the funding would change the futures of over 2,000 children, parents and families, in the next two years. We would like to extend a huge heartfelt thank you to the RTÉ Toy Show Appeal and the Communities Foundation for Ireland as we now believe that we will transcend this and our impact together will become far-reaching and generational.
You can read the full impact report via the link below –
https://www.communityfoundation.ie/images/uploads/pdfs/Toy-Show-Appeal-Report-Screen.pdf
The donations to the RTÉ Toy Show Appeal, are received and managed by a registered charity, The Community Foundation for Ireland which works in partnership with RTE.
