Sensational Kids €40,000 x 2 years Sensational Kids was founded by Karen Leigh and was inspired by her son who was 1 in 4 children with additional needs in Ireland. He was put on waiting lists for basic services like speech & language therapy and occupational therapy. And so, Sensational Kids was established to provide subsidized early intervention services for young people with special educational needs. Ten years on, the problem persists as there are now 30,000 children in Ireland waiting for speech & language therapy and another 15,000 waiting for occupational therapy. To date over 5,000 children with additional needs, from all over Ireland, have benefited from Sensational Kids vital early intervention services based at their Leinster Centre in Kildare Town. Support from The Ireland Funds, will enable Sensational Kids to provide early intervention services to an additional 500-600 children per year in two new centers in Clonakilty and Claremorris, allowing them to triple their social impact. CyberSafeIreland €40,000 x 2 years CyberSafeIreland is the Irish children’s charity for online safety. Since 2016, they have conducted workshops with over 14,000 children aged between 8 and 13 and thousands of parents and teach- ers, educating them on online safety and empowering them to use it safely and re- sponsibly. CyberSafeIreland have collect- ed data from over 5,000 children aged 8 – 13 over the last year and alarming results have shown that that children are getting online at an increasingly young age. • 68% of pre-teens had a smartphone • 70% were already signed up to social media or messaging apps • 10% of the 8-year olds were online for more than 4 hours a day • 41% of 8-9-year-old boys are playing games intended for over 18s Support from The Ireland Funds will allow CyberSafeIreland to hire an Education Officer for the next 2 years. Through increased education programs, awareness raising initiatives and online resources, CyberSafeIreland aim to reach 500,000 families across Ireland and teach them to be stronger, smarter and safer online. Trinity Centre for People with Intellectual Disabilities €40,000 x 2 years Trinity Centre for People with Intellectual Disabilities (TCPID) aims to promote the inclusion of people with intellectual dis- abilities in education and society. TCPID provides people who have intellectual dis- abilities with the opportunity to participate in a higher education program designed to enhance their capacity to fully participate in society as independent adults. Flagship support from The Ireland Funds will allow TCPID to develop a Graduate Internship Programme, extending on the two-year certificate (Level 5, QQI) in Arts, Science and Inclusive Applied Practice in TCD to include a third year of employment internship experiences. This will ulti- mately enable people with intellectual disabilities to compete for employment on a more equal level to their non-dis- abled peers and, as a result, to lead more independent lives. connect 2019 • 59