CDI’s Nova Youth Mental Health Programme in action in schools
CDI awarded three years of funding to tackle mental health
A TALLAGHT-based childhood development organisation has been awarded three years’ worth of funding to help tackle young people’s mental health and school avoidance.
The Childhood Development Initiative (CDI) has been selected as one of seven new awardees of Rethink Ireland’s Brighter Futures Fund.
This significant three-year investment will allow CDI to expand and strengthen its Nova Youth Mental Health Programme from 2025 to 2028, with a strong focus on supporting children and young people in Tallaght.
CDI’s Nova Youth Mental Health Programme, which piloted from 2022 to August 2025, supports children and young people experiencing school avoidance—a challenge often linked to anxiety and other negative emotions that make attending school more difficult.
The programme provides a structured, compassionate response to school avoidance, helping young people reconnect with education and their wider community at a time when they are facing increased challenges, and teachers need additional support.
It is built on the best available evidence using a multi-tiered system of support and an interagency approach, ensuring early intervention and prevention remain central.
The funding will allow CDI to expand Nova from 9 partner schools to 19 by 2027/28, significantly increasing support for children and families in Tallaght, and to extend it beyond the pilot phase, delivering three further years of structured mental health support.
It will also allow CDI to deepen their local impact, enhance direct work with Tallaght schools, young people, and parents, and cale national resources, including wider availability of CDI’s school avoidance Toolkit to schools and practitioners across Ireland, which was launched earlier this year.
The Toolkit is Ireland’s first online dedicated resource for professionals and parents, during a growing crisis that is impacting children, families, and schools.
The Brighter Futures Fund is a partnership between Rethink Ireland, a private donor, and the Department of Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht, via the Dormant Accounts Fund.
