Let's Grow Together

A proud moment for our team at Let’s Grow Together! What an achievement!!

Katherine Harford — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 17:01:24 +0000

A proud moment for our team at Let’s Grow Together! What an achievement!!

We’re incredibly proud to share some wonderful news from our Let’s Grow Together team.

Five of our wonderful colleagues have recently received their IMH Endorsements — specifically the IMH-E® Infant Family Specialist credential from the Irish Association for Infant Mental Health (I-AIMH). This is a wonderful milestone not just for them, but for all of us who are committed to supporting the healthy development of babies and young children.

Congratulations to Our Five Newly Endorsed Practitioners

We are incredibly proud of our team members for earning the IMH-E® Infant Family Specialist endorsement:

Grace Walsh – Senior Speech and Language Therapist
Tracie Lane – Infant and Family Project Worker
Suzanne Rigby – Infant and Family project Worker
Katherine Manley – Infant Family and Project Worker
Jennifer Harte – Speech and Language Therapist

Each of them has demonstrated outstanding commitment, skill, and dedication in their work with babies, young children, parents, and caregivers—qualities that reflect the heart of our work here at Let’s Grow Together!

What Is an IMH Endorsement?

The Infant Mental Health Endorsement® (IMH-E®) is an internationally recognised credential that shows a professional has reached a strong level of knowledge and skill in working with infants (birth to 3 years old) and their families in a way that promotes emotional well-being and secure relationships. It’s based on a set of evidence-informed competencies that emphasise culturally sensitive, relationship-focused practice — meaning the way we work is grounded in strong relationships, understanding of early development, and reflective practice.

Unlike a simple course certificate, an IMH Endorsement reflects a combination of real-world experience, specialised training, reflective supervision work, and professional development that all come together to show expertise in supporting early social and emotional development.

Why We Think This Matters

At Let’s Grow Together, we centre our work around building secure early relationships and promoting social and emotional wellbeing in babies and young children. In essence, it’s about working alongside families, supporting them with care, compassion, and respect during the earliest and most important years. These early experiences lay the foundation for how children relate to others, learn, and thrive throughout life.

Supporting our team to pursue and attain IMH Endorsements isn’t just about professional recognition — it’s about:

Ensuring the highest quality of relationship-based support
Strengthening our understanding of infant and family development
Bringing reflective, culturally responsive practice into everything we do
Helping every family we work with feel understood, supported, and empowered

A Growing Culture of Learning

And it doesn’t stop there! We’re also excited to say that more team members are currently working towards their own IMH Endorsements — and we’re fully behind them. Continuous professional development matters to us, especially when it deepens our ability to connect with and support families from pregnancy through the earliest years of life.

If you’d like to know more about the IMH Endorsement or what it takes to achieve one, feel free to reach out — we’re always happy to share what we’ve learned!

Let’s Grow Together

Community Survey

Katherine Harford — Mon, 17 Nov 2025 10:01:11 +0000

We’re building our Strategic Plan for 2026–2029—and we need your ideas! If you’re a parent, caregiver, or member of our community, we’d love to hear from you. What matters to you will help shape the services and collaborations that benefit families in Cork City Northwest.

Community and General Public Survey

https://forms.cloud.microsoft/r/XW51V92tWs

Invitation to tender: Strategic Plan (2026-2030) Development Consultant

Jessie Shea — Wed, 03 Sep 2025 09:08:28 +0000

Let’s Grow Together invites proposals from suitably qualified and experienced individuals or organisations to lead and facilitate the development and design of our next Strategic Plan for the period 2026–2030. It is expected that this project will result in a final stylised Strategic Plan document that can be disseminated widely and used to guide the organisation through the lifespan of the Plan.

View the full invitation to tender here.

Informal inquiries and submissions to admin@letsgrowtogether.ie.

2024 Annual Report

Katherine Harford — Fri, 25 Jul 2025 13:10:05 +0000

Our 2024 Annual Report is here!

See the highlights of our year and the story of our work.

🔵 core concepts guiding our work

🔵 funders and key partnerships

🔵 programmes and services available to families and other service providers

🔵 plans for the future

Cork Crime Series: With ambition and vision, we can upend this cycle of disadvantage and harm

Katherine Harford — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 14:30:40 +0000

The Irish Examiner recently ran an investigation on crime in Cork City. Our Executive Director Katherine Harford responds in an article and as a guest on their podcast series with context to provide balance and understanding. She also makes the case for supports from people, services and systems to create a stronger “village” that raise children and can help prevent risk of harm, reduce the impact of poverty, and to help children and families thrive.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/courtandcrime/arid-41657279.html

Annual Pysched Recognition Event

Katherine Harford — Fri, 23 May 2025 08:03:05 +0000

Last week, our Executive Director Katherine Harford represented Let’s Grow Together at the Annual Pysched Recognition Event. We were honoured to receive a certificate of recognition from the Deputy Lord Mayor of Cork City Council – Comhairle Cathrach Chorcaí and Cork County Council for our work on reflectivepractice for staff.

We have a culture of reflective practice, and our team who deliver front line services participate in reflective practice group supervision with Dr. Nicola O’Sullivan. This helps staff process their work with families, how they are in the work, and how they can grow and develop in that work. How you are is as important as what you do.

Our team also participated in research about reflective practice with Dr Mary Tobin, Dr. Nicola O’Sullivan, and Elaine Rogers. Read this research here: https://lnkd.in/eHQD5UKb

Another local team being recognised for the reflective practice work was Le Cheile School Completion Programme, represented by Monica Finn. It was great to be recognised alongside Monica and all the 40 other awardees on the night.

Thanks to Aoife Ni Chonchuir and all the organisers and contributors who brought the celebration together.

Peep Learning Together Programme Training

Katherine Harford — Mon, 10 Feb 2025 10:24:16 +0000

The next Peeple Peep Learning Together Programme Training is coming up in May, and spaces will fill fast! This training is for practitioners who work with families with babies and young children.

You will learn how to run a Peep group, which help contribute to strong parent/caregiver – child relationships, increased caregiver knowledge and confidence in how to support their child’s learning and play in day-to-day activities.

Learn more about running Peep groups here: https://lnkd.in/eFaTdaHG

Peep groups are some of the most popular groups that we run throughout the year, and help provide a strong foundation for building relationships and having fun.

The Science of Love

Katherine Harford — Fri, 10 Jan 2025 14:37:33 +0000

Let’s Grow Together, Irish Play Therapy Association and the Irish Association for Infant Mental Health are delighted to welcome Dan Wuori to Cork on Friday 14th February 2025.

Join us for this interactive, positive event for Valentine’s day to celebrate and honour the science of love from pregnancy and beyond. Spotlighting the magic of nurturing interactions in the context of adult-baby relationships.

This not for profit, special event will be relevant for practitioners and caregivers and will give attendees an insight into the science created in moments of attachment and love.

Ticket includes a light lunch and are available to buy through Eventbrite

Dr. Dan Wuori

With more than 30 years of early years leadership, Dr. Dan Wuori is the Founder and President of Early Childhood Policy Solutions, a bipartisan public policy consultancy focused on the needs of young children, their families, and the early years professionals who serve them. He serves concurrently as a Strategic Advisor on Early Childhood to the Saul Zaentz Charitable Foundation. In both roles – and in his prior position as the founding Director of Early Childhood at The Hunt Institute in Cary, North Carolina – Dr. Wuori has worked alongside governors and state legislators to improve early years policy across the United States.

But to parents the world over, Dan is known not for his policy work, but for his innovative use of social media to educate about infants and toddlers – with more than a quarter million followers (across platforms) tuning in to his daily video child development lessons. This work was recently profiled in The New York Times, which called his X (Twitter) account “a font of delight and edification… educational, but also – put simply – awwwww.”

His new book The Daycare Myth: What We Get Wrong About Early Care and Education (and What We Should Do About It) was released in September 2024. Upon its announcement, the book – which explores the costly disconnect between what we know about the science of early development and our public policy – spent a week at the top of Amazon’s education, education reform and policy, and developmental psychology best sellers list. It is now in its third printing.

We’re hiring! A part time Infant Family Project Worker

Katherine Harford — Wed, 18 Dec 2024 09:48:49 +0000

We are now seeking to recruit Infant Family Project Worker (20 hours per week) to join our team for an initial temporary fixed-term contact to 31^st December 2025 with extension subject to continued availability of funds.

This an important team role in Let’s Grow Together enabling parents and caregivers across communities to support children’s earliest development. The position is based in our office location(s) within the community in Knocknaheeny, Cork City with the post holder expected to work across the community.

The starting salary for this post will be €36,195 per annum pro-rata.

Canvassing will disqualify.

Let’s Grow Together! Infant & Childhood Partnerships CLG is an equal opportunities employer committed to equality, diversity and inclusion.

The core work of Let’s Grow Together! Infant & Childhood Partnerships CLG is funded by the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth and is part of the Area Based Childhood Programme within the TUSLA Child & Family Agency.

To apply:

Please apply by email only with a C.V. and cover letter, clearly setting out your interest, qualifications, knowledge, skills and experience relevant to the role. The closing date for all applications is 1.00pm on Friday 10th January (no late applications will be accepted).

Applications to admin@letsgrowtogether.ie

Informal enquiries in advance of closing date to trish@letsgrowtogether.ie

Shortlisting will apply.

It is anticipated that interviews for prospective candidates for this post are anticipated to take place during the week commencing 13^th January with the successful candidate taking up the role as soon as possible thereafter.

Download the Job Description for full details:

2025 IFPW Job Description Part time

2-day Infant and Early Childhood Masterclass

Katherine Harford — Thu, 12 Dec 2024 10:05:55 +0000

Our 2-day Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Masterclass finished yesterday with 25 participants. We explored key principles and practices of IECMH, and how they contribute to developing strong early relationships and secure attachments.

Thank you to all our participants, and we are already looking forward to running the class next year!