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Release News - 2005



8 October 2005 - Offaly women are honoured amongst Ireland's Leading Social Entrepreneurs (Offaly Independent)
Tara Cunningham is CEO of Release Speech Therapy, which provides speech and language therapy to parents of children with learning and speech disabilities through group therapy at a relatively low cost by primarily focusing on teaching parents the skills they need to work with their children on a day-to-day basis.

8 October 2005 - Two Offaly Ladies Honoured Amongst Ireland's Leading Social Entrepreneurs (Tullamore Tribune)
Two inspirational women from Offaly were last night honoured at the Social Entrepreneurs Ireland Inaugural Awards Ceremony which took place in Dublin City University. Tara Cunningham from Tullamore, and Solome Mbugua Henry, from Portarlington both received an award in recognition of their outstanding wok in the community.

27 September 2005 - Cheers for a Clown! (The Sun)
THERE was plenty of clowning around yesterday as Ireland's community heros were celebrated.

27 September 2005 - Entrepreneurs lend helping hand (Irish Independent)
Entrepreneurs who devote their working lives for the betterment of society instead of their bank balances were honoured last night at an awards ceremony held in Dublin.

26 September 2005 - Tara Cunningham, MD is awarded the Social Entrepreneur Award 2005 from Social Entrepreneur Ireland

23 September 2005 - Tara Cunningham, MD on Midlands 103
Managing Director, Tara Cunningham was interviewed on Midlands 103 to discuss the upcoming Social Entrepreneur Award she will receive as well as the work Release Speech Therapy is completing.

Release is still looking to locate a school in the Midlands Region. If you are interested please email taracunningham@release.ie.

September 2005 - Tara Cunningham, MD and Release Speech Therapy are shortlisted for Dublin City Enterprise Board's Entrepreneur of the Year

1 September 2005 - Release is awarded Autumn Contract with Ballyowen Meadows Special School
Parents are lobbying to maintain Release through December 2005.

26 August 2005 - Ballyowen Meadows Special School Analysis sent to the Office of the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children and Health Service Executive
Click here to review the Ballyowen Analysis (PDF)

23 July 2005 - Tara Cunningham, MD of Release has her first born son Eoin Thomas Cunningham. Dad, Mom and Baby are doing well!!!

7 July 2005 - Release Completes first session at Ballyowen Meadows Special School
Parents strongly urge school to continue the programme.

21 May 2005 - LOFFA Benefits From Release Speech Therapy
The results from the nine-week pilot proves the new low cost, easily accessible, group speech therapy programme works.

18 May 2005 - New speech therapy business established in Tullamore
A new speech therapy business has been established in Tullamore by Tara Cunningham and her husband Mark.

15 May 2005 - Pilot Analysis is sent to the Office of the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children and Health Service Executive
Click here to review the Pilot Analysis (PDF)

25 April 2005 - Release is awarded St John of God's Menni Services Assessment Contract
Release has been awarded a contract with St John of Gods, Menni Services to assess all 17 of their students in the Islandbridge and Tallaght Campuses.

11 April 2005 - Release is awarded Ballyowen Meadows Special School Contract
The Release Programme worked so well for eight Release Parents whose children attended the Pilot, along with the support of their children's teachers, successfully lobbied the school principal, therapists and Health Board to have the programme integrated into their school's curriculum.

This newly formed private / public partnership is successfully integrating into every child's IEP at Ballyowen Meadows and we are therefore able to provide the key missing component of Speech and Language Therapy for all 27 children--thereby affording each child a proper holistic therapy programme.

26 March 2005 - Release Pilot a Success for 42 children!!!
The pilot has been an overwhelming success, with 95% of parents involved stating their child made significant progress, would attend another session of Release and would refer a friend to the Programme.

The pilot worked with the following speech and language disabilities: Asperger Syndrome, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Down syndrome, Epilepsy, Fluency Disorders, Phonology, Articulation, Oral Motor Skills, Augmentative Communication and Chromosome X, ages ranging from <1 - 16 years.

24 January 2005 - Meeting with Economic Advisor to the Tánaiste
Tara Cunningham, Managing Director and Jennifer Wetter, MS, CCC-SLP, Director of Speech and Language Therapy met with John O'Brien, Economic Advisor to the Tánaiste to discuss the Release Programme. We are looking forward to the Tánaiste's visit in the upcoming months.

11 January 2005 - Assessments begin for Session 1 of Release Speech Therapy.
52 parents of children with a full range of disabilities will begin to be assessed by the therapists at Release Speech Therapy for placement in Session 1. Classes begin 25 January. Session 1 fully booked out in only three weeks. We are currently taking enrollment for Session 2.