'Growing Up in Ireland' Annual Research Conference 2012

Venue: Ballsbridge Hotel, Pembroke Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4.

Growing Up in Ireland – the National Longitudinal Study of Children, held its fourth annual research conference onThursday 29th November at the Ballsbridge Hotel, Dublin. The conference focused on research based on Growing Up in Ireland (GUI) data. Visit the GUI website for full details.

The conference was opened by Jim Breslin, Secretary General of the Department of Children and Youth Affairs, who launched the latest in a series of Growing Up in Ireland Key Findings. These were based on data collected from 13 year olds and their families between August 2011 and March 2012.

Keynote Speaker
The keynote address was given by Professor Lucinda Platt. Professor Platt is Director of the Millennium Cohort Study, and Professor of Sociology at the Institute of Education, University of London. The Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) is a survey following the lives of over 19,000 children born across the UK around the turn of the millennium. Prior to taking up the role as Director of the MCS, Professor Platt was based at the University of Essex, where she was one of the original co-investigators on Understanding Society, the UK’s largest household longitudinal study. She is also involved in two major cross-national studies of immigration.

Conference Presentations
Approximately 21 papers were presented at the conference. These are based on Growing Up in Ireland’s Child and Infant Cohorts and focused on a range of topics including health, parenting, education and childcare.

Growing Up in Ireland is a Government study. The Department Children and Youth Affairs is funding it in association with the Department of Social Protection and the Central Statistics Office. The Department of Children and Youth Affairs is overseeing and managing the study, which is being carried out by a consortium of researchers led by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) and Trinity College Dublin. www.growingup.ie.