Ireland – City Connects Blog

Educators from Dublin and Springfield talk about City Connects

Last week, we proudly welcomed the principals of the 10 City Connects schools in Dublin, Ireland, to meet with our staff at Boston College.

It was a wonderful chance to share ideas and strategies about how City Connects helps schools understand and address the needs and interests of their students.

The principals visited several local Catholic and public schools in Boston that implement City Connects, shared their own City Connects experiences, and talked about how to better engage families, teachers, and the community in providing students with systematic support.

One of the most inspiring sessions was a discussion on implementing City Connects in large cities that occurred between the Dublin principals and Daniel Warwick, Superintendent of the Springfield Public Schools in Massachusetts. Warwick was joined by Jessica Davila, the principal of Springfield’s Alice B. Beal School, and Stephanie Sanabria, Springfield’s City Connects Program Manager.

Why communities are expanding City Connects

Since launching in Boston in 2001, City Connects has expanded to communities across the country and across the Atlantic Ocean in Dublin, Ireland. Now, these communities are continuing to grow City Connects to meet their students’ needs.

Here’s a look at why communities in New York, Indiana and Ohio, and in Dublin are expanding City Connects.

Starting earlier in Poughkeepsie

In Poughkeepsie, N.Y., educators first piloted City Connects in Poughkeepsie Middle School, as a means to ensure that students had access to needed resources.

Now, Poughkeepsie is looking at ways to reconfigure its elementary schools to “increase student academic achievement, enhance student social-emotional development, build stronger relationships in response to parent needs and concerns and [in response to] research,” as a Poughkeepsie Schools article explains.

The news from Ireland

City Connects has made the news in Ireland, where our model is being implemented in 10 schools in Dublin’s North East Inner City.

“For the pupils and teachers at St Vincent’s Boys’ Infant School in Dublin, a change is under way,” an article from Raidió Teilifís Éireann, Ireland’s National Public Service Media, reports.

“Where once the school struggled with high absentee levels, particularly on Mondays and Fridays, attendance rates are now rising, with the boys reporting feeling happier coming to school.

“It is a change that School Principal Caoimhe Sheehan puts down to the introduction of a pilot project called City Connects.”

Sheehan herself says, “The boys are coming to school every day so excited about the different activities they can access.

“We have capoeira (mixed martial arts), gymnastics, athletics, football. Since the activities have been brought in, the absentee levels have dropped. It has been absolutely incredible.”

The Weekly Connect 4/24/23

Here’s the new edition of The Weekly Connect. Check it out and sign up to have it delivered to your inbox!

Here are some of the things we’ve been reading about this week:

Replacing older school buses improves attendance.

President Biden signs an executive order to make child care cheaper.

A City Connects school in Dublin, Ireland, uses compelling activities to address absenteeism.

To read more, click on the following links.

Centering children: City Connects in Ireland

When Gerard Cullen talks about City Connects, he talks about the importance of keeping students at the center of the work we do.

Cullen, the program manager for City Connects in Dublin, Ireland, explains this in a video posted by Ireland’s Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth.

“One of the things City Connects does every year is we survey the children [about] what their interests are,” Cullen says. “We’re surveying children from junior infants to sixth class. And I was blown away the first year – and the results were the same second year – [by] what those interests are. I would never have believed in the Northeast Inner City in Dublin the number one interest was swimming. The second highest interest was Lego. Arts and crafts and cookery were there.”

“By having that list of interests, we can then use that to approach the different community partners – whether it’s Dublin City Council or whether it’s a local youth club – and say, Listen, this is what the children want. And I keep giving credit to all of the community groups in the Northeast Inner City. They have not been found wanting when they see that this is what the need is.”

“And when you said, How does it all work? or what’s the secret for making it all work – [it’s] if we keep the child at the center of the room. At the end of the day, all of us want to improve their lives.”

To hear more, please watch the video.

By the numbers: City Connects in Dublin, Ireland

City Connects is in its third year of operations in Ireland, where it’s running in Dublin’s North East Inner City (NEIC), an area with high concentrations of students who live in poverty.

Since then, the program has brought new services, supports, and enrichment programs to students. Here’s a by-the-numbers look at what has been accomplished, drawn from NEIC’s 2022 Progress Report.

Sharing lessons and stories: City Connects’ Executive Director Mary Walsh

Mary Walsh, Executive Director of City Connects and the Mary E. Walsh Center for Thriving Children (Photo: Caitlin Cunningham)

Ask Mary Walsh, the Executive Director of City Connects, about her love of education, and she talks about her parents who grew up in Ireland and were only able to attend school through the fourth grade.

“It was always my dad’s deepest regret that he never could get more education,” she says.

Walsh shares this story and the road that led her to become a professor of education in Boston College Magazine’s What I’ve Learned section.

As Walsh tells BC Magazine, one key lesson she has learned from her father is “Nobody can take your education from you.”

However obstacles like poverty, hunger, and parental depression can prevent children from getting an education in the first place. What can make a difference is equipping schools to move these obstacles aside so children can learn. And that’s why Walsh launched City Connects, to put Coordinators in schools who look at every child and provide services and supports to maximize each child’s readiness to learn.

Another lesson is “Always live on the hyphen.”

From the archives: City Connects in Ireland

While the blog is on summer vacation, we’re sharing past posts about the many ways City Connects helps students thrive.

This week’s roundup looks at how City Connects has expanded into Ireland.

* * * *

Ireland launches City Connects
City Connects Blog, June 11 2020

Often City Connects grows because of, well, connections. That’s what happened when Una Shannon came from Ireland to Boston College to be a postdoctoral fellow. Shannon learned about City Connects and shared our work with Eugene Wall, the president of Mary Immaculate College in Limerick, Ireland, as well as sharing it with ministers from the Irish National Government.

The result: Irish educators are planning to launch a City Connects pilot program this fall in 10 Dublin schools.

“It strikes me that any ‘school person’ who hears about City Connects tends to have an ‘aha’ moment,” Shannon says. She’s a former teacher who earned her bachelor’s degree from Mary Immaculate College. “It just makes sense to support the whole child, to have a strengths-based perspective, and to have a systemic, systematic, and sustained approach to student support that’s in rhythm with school life.”

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: