628. Deputy Seán Haughey asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the number of early years services who have completed their Better Start QDS, by geographical area, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24965/24]

Better Start was established in 2014 by my Department, in association with the Department of Education, to deliver quality-related supports to early learning and care services and to support a cohesive approach to State-funded supports for quality across the early learning and care sector. Better Start is hosted by Pobal on behalf of my Department.

The Quality Development Service (QDS) forms one strand of Better Start activities. The QDS works with early learning and care settings in a mentoring capacity to promote and develop the quality of practice, as set out in Síolta, the National Quality Framework for Early Childhood Education (2006), and Aistear, the Early Childhood Curriculum Framework (2009).

The QDS provides a skilled and experienced team of Early Years Specialists to work directly in a mentoring capacity with early learning and care services, on a national basis. The Early Years Specialists use the Aistear Síolta Practice Guide (National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, 2014) as a key resource in mentoring services to develop quality for children.

The purpose of the Practice Guide is to support early years educators in using Aistear and Síolta together to develop the quality of their curriculum and in doing so, to better support children’s learning and development.

Requests for the QDS come directly to Better Start, principally from self-referrals. All requests for the service are processed centrally. Early Years Specialists are allocated to the services on the basis of availability, skills and experience as far as possible matching the service profile.

Better Start Early Years Specialists work with the management and staff of early learning and care services to build on service knowledge, strengths and experience in order to enhance the quality of provision for young children. Early learning and care services are supported in action planning and goal setting using the Aistear Síolta Practice Guide. Early Years Specialists will usually visit the service on a weekly or fortnightly basis over a period of about six months.

These supports are delivered in a coherent and consistent way to support the provision of high quality services and promote positive outcomes for children. Since 2015, 1,201 early learning and care services have completed QDS, with 108 services completing QDS in 2023. The table below provides these figures broken down by county geographical area.