SCHOOL PROGRAMMES

v School Leavers’ Programme

Overview

Mother of Fair Love School Leavers’ Programme is carried out over 1-2 years.  This programme involves preparing the student for the work place, setting up work experiences for the student within the community and finally securing a training facility / work placement in advance of the student leaving the school and entering independent adult life.

Links with local employment services

While still at school and in order to maximize on their opportunities, the school works closely on behalf of the student with local employment services.

HSE

The bulk of this work with the student occurs in conjunction with the assistance for a local Occupational Guidance Counsellor from the HSE.  This Counsellor, who targets students’ training options, meets regularly with the students, initially with a group and then individually.  This is followed up with a meeting with the students’ parents.  Towards the end of the end of the year the Counsellor works in conjunction with the family, acting as an advocate for future student support needs.

The HSE hosts a meeting generally in the first term which provides a general overview of the services and further training facilities available to students.  Representatives from various bodies attend.  The venue for the meeting itself rotates between the social schools in Kilkenny.

Other Employment Services

The school has also developed links with other employment services, such as KASES and with Solas (formerly FAS-Employer based training).  Where appropriate, the teacher also arranges further meetings with these services as the situation demands.

Community Based Workshops

Mother of Fair Love School also avails of many community based services in Kilkenny itself which run workshops and provide a useful bank of information for students transitioning into a more socialized setting and young independent adult lives.  Examples of such well known services would include:

          The Samaritans, Childline, Barnarados, MABS, Citizen Information Bureau

            Fire and Rescue Service, The Drum Young club, Environmental services

Personalised work place training for students

Students who attend training facilities in the Kilkenny area do so under a scheme which involves a lot of support for the students themselves while training.  The training is monitored by the school and feedback on the trainees’ progress is returned to the  school at the end of each trial basis which generally last for one to two weeks at  a time.  Examples of training facilities would be:

KEY, National Learning Network (NLN), Rehab Care, Kingsriver, KCAT, L’Arche, The Watergarden

On graduating from Mother of Fair Love School, students may also have the option of attending one of these facilities for future trainings.

Work Experience on Business Premises

Kilkenny City has a long tradition of welcoming final year students from Mother of Fair Love School into their business premises in the spirit of providing them with an experience of actual life in the work place.  As with all training or work experiences, the students are matched up with placements in terms of personality, preferences and skill set.

Students’ work experiences extend over many sectors:

Hospitality, retail and other industries such as food, service, music and also in the area of medicine e.g. animal health.

NALA Programme

The NALA Programme operates as a natural progression from completion of JCL2

v INDIVIDUALISED EDUCATION PROGRAMME (IEP)

Each child in the school has their own IEP and this informs all of their learning and activities throughout the school year.

v Social Skills Programme

A social skills programme is in place for every individual child across the school and this underpins all their work.

Other programmes in place throughout the school to support social skills training would include “Circle of Friends Programme” and “Friends for Life”.

v Buddy Programme

A Buddy Programme has been put in place to all new entrants to the school whether at the start of the school year or mid year.  The Programme ensures that the children are welcomed and settle as soon as possible.

v Healthy Eating Programme

The school provides both a breakfast and lunch menu under a social welfare grant scheme.  All meals come to us through the Carambola food company and these are provided free of charge to the children who select their own meals from an online menu.

At the moment the school is developing a healthy eating programme with the assistance of a Nutritionist and the local Disability Officer.