Barnardo’s NI welcomes development of a framework that will, in theory, bring all aspects of children and young people’s emotional health and wellbeing care into a single, integrated system that ensures that every child and young person in Northern Ireland receives the right kind of care that is catered to their needs. However, we want to emphasise the need for a robust framework that is accompanied by costed actions and targets, and is supported by joined up working across statutory, non-statutory, and the community and voluntary sector with clear accountability and responsibility.
Barnardo's NI engaged with a range of young people to seek their views on the Partnership and Engagement Strategy and shared the following feedback on the accessibility of the Strategy: Young people told us that the Strategy was difficult to understand, with language that was inaccessible for young people.
We appreciate the opportunity to feedback on the Practitioner Guidance on Child Criminal Exploitation, and we look forward to working together to embed this guidance and improve safeguarding outcomes for children and young people. We believe this tool will strengthen protective work and reinforce collaborative approaches across our organisations, helping us identify risks earlier and deliver coordinated support.
We appreciate the opportunity to feedback on the Probation Board’s Corporate Plan for 2026-2029. Barnardo’s NI is the largest children’s charity in Northern Ireland. In the past year we worked with approximately 18,000 children, young people and families across more than 45 different services and programmes.
Free school meal (FSM) eligibility should be designed to target children living in poverty. Given that FSM eligibility is often used as a passport to other entitlements, such as uniform grants, this provides an even greater incentive to ensuring children in poverty are correctly targeted in the eligibility criteria. As NICCY's evidence highlights, the current FSM criteria only covers 59% of children living in poverty, with 66% of those who are eligible not living in poverty. This clearly demonstrates that the current eligibility criteria is not fit for purpose.
While Barnardo’s Northern Ireland welcomes the consultation on the Fuel Poverty Strategy, we are disappointed that this strategy is being developed in the absence of an overarching Northern Ireland Anti-Poverty Strategy. The children, families, and individuals that struggle to pay for electricity, gas or oil, are the same people that cannot afford school uniforms, that need to use a food bank to put food on the table, or skip meals so that they can make ends meet.
Barnardo’s NI welcomes the opportunity to provide our response to the Proposed Content and Action Plan for the Infant Mental Health Framework. Our comments are informed by our work with the diverse communities of children and families that we support through our 45+ services in Northern Ireland, including providing services to support infant mental health and parent-infant relationship during the first 1,001 days of a babies life.
Consultation response
Mental health and emotional wellbeingParenting support
In November 2025, we launched the Born Unequal: Tackling the Root Causes of Health Inequity in Childhood report based on the learning from the Children and Young People’s Health Equity Collaborative.
This tool is for leaders who are confident in their voice and influence practice with children and young people and who interested in sharing examples of best practice with peers.
Drawing on our learning, we developed the Child Health Equity Monitoring Framework which consists of a key set of indicators aligned with the Child Health Equity Framework. The Monitoring Framework is designed to help local health and care systems track progress and take action on child health inequalities.
Research report
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