The Department of Education’s earmarked budget for parenting initiatives is currently £250,000 per annum and is allocated entirely to the education and library boards. It is primarily a matter for each board to determine how these earmarked resources should be used and they are also free to supplement this funding by allocating further resources from within their overall block grant.
Funding has recently been made available to 471 schools from the Children and Young People Funding Package for the Extended Schools Programme. This will enable schools to develop initiatives some of which may involve parents. In addition, a further £10 million has recently been issued directly to all schools and it is open to schools to determine whether some of this additional funding should be used to support parenting initiatives.
Based specifically on the earmarked funding allocated by the Department to the boards for parenting initiatives the figure represents £0.78 per pupil attending grant-aided schools in Northern Ireland. However, this figure is clearly not a true reflection of the actual resources spent on promoting positive parenting within the education sector.