Tara Cunningham, Release Shares Her Experience at the National Womens Enterprise Day

Tara runs a speech therapy school for children. She previously worked as a Director with Oglivy Maher. She left that to work with a charity and realised that the parents of kids with special needs needed interventions for their kids. So she set up Release to start training therapists for that market

She researched and trained in the US and they initially worked with over 400 children with just one therapist. 14 of those children are talking - after a HSE assessment that they would never talk. Her husband Mark was with her from the beginning and initially supported her in setting up. Release is set up as a social business - where the profits go back into the community. It is self-funding so it does not go fund raising. They do not advertise - the kids they work with come from word of mouth recommendations. She said that Mary Harney is very supportive of what they do and is helping them to work on changing the structures and work practices within the HSE. Their therapists spend 85% of their time with kids and 15% on admin, this is more typically 35-55% of time on administration in more classical structures. She spoke about winning the Ashoka Fellowship - it provides her with a basic income for 3 years which up to now she has not had. Finally, she said each of us should spend 20% of our time on strategy each week - standing back from the operations and thinking about where you and your business are going. www.release.ie

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