CLONDALKIN group has made educational history by training parents to act as educational home visitors. The Clondalkin Area Parents in Education (CAPE) initiative trained 30 parents - all of them women - to visit the homes of parents and offer advice and support on educational matters.

The 12 week training programme covered issues such as child psychology, parenting, the relationship between society and school and communications and counselling skills.

The programme assures that educational home visitors will have at least one thing in common with the householders they visit: they all are parents, and will have shared experiences common to parenting.

The training, funded by the Clondalkin Partnership and completed recently, consisted of 12 weekly two hour sessions; the 30 parents came from three centres: Quarryvale/Balgaddy, Rowlagh/Neilstown and Bawnogue/Deansreath.

According to Concepta Conaty, national coordinator of the Department of Education's HomeSchool Community Liaison Scheme, the CAPE initiative seeks to develop the parent as prime educator.

Training parents as home visitors is a means of empowering the local community to respond to its own needs, Conaty says. "Educational home visits are one of the ways we seek to go into the background and bring parents into the foreground," she says. "They are a powerful mechanism.

"When a child learns something within his or her own home, that something will stay with the child for the rest of his or her life," she says.

Conaty explains how the initiative developed. "The coordinators of the scheme targeted 30 parents who were already active in school and community groups. Through funds provided by the local partnership group we were able to train these people to act as educational home visitors.

"OVER THE summer they will be dealing with parents who have children going from home to school for the first time, as well as parents who are sending their children to second level school," she says.

Conaty's experience is that parents readily identify with others who have gone through the same experience. "Although the coordinator is accepted by the community, there is a greater empathy from parent to parent," she says.

According to Conaty, parent to parent training creates a "multiplier" effect. "Those 30 parents will be part of the training of another 30 parents. The more that parents can deliver to parents, the more powerful the community can become."

Geraldine Murphy, one of the 30, recalls: "Over the 12 weeks we realised we shared so many experiences and life skills. Between the 30 of us we had 200 children, including grandchildren.

"The knock on effect is that what we learned we can pass on to other parents," she says.

Of course, the parent as educational home visitor is not the final port of call. "If parents are having major problems, then we refer them to someone else," says Bernie Gaffney from Cherrywood, Clondalkin. However, "with our own experience and our training we can talk to parents and ease their minds.

"The transition from sixth class to first year at second level can be a big worry for parents, and problems range from where to buy the uniform to book rental," she says.

Geraldine Murphy, who has boys aged six, nine, 12 and 14, agrees. "I remember my own kids being very nervous and holding back when they should have been looking forward," she says. "Everyone can solve their own problems. In most cases, it's only a matter of hearing that you can."

Another one of the 30, Gwen Ormond, from Neilstown, Clondalkin, says years ago parents tended to stay away from school, but this is changing now. "The educational home visits will help break down the barrier that can exist between teachers and parents," she says. "The home visits will do away with the them and us stigma."