Meet Caitriona Watters-Crehan, Founder of Prepare Me

permanent tsb is proud to celebrate courage and champion entrepreneurship as a supporter of ‘Changing Ireland: My Big Idea’, a six-part docuseries produced for RTÉ One, in association with our community partner Social Entrepreneurs (SEI). The documentary follows some of the most successful social entrepreneurs from the SEI Alumni Network, showcasing the positive impact that their work is having across the country and detailing their journey from start-up to scale-up.

Today, we want to introduce you to Caitriona Watters-Crehan, Founder of Prepare Me and one of the entrepreneurs featured in the series.

Caitriona has worked in the disability sector for nearly 20 years supporting children, adults and their families who have additional needs. Through both her work, and her own personal experience with daughter Casey-Jane, Catriona believes that the current information systems available do not meet the learning styles of those with additional needs. If you do not use words to speak, or you process language differently, verbal explanations and text are not the best format of communication when preparing for something.

Caitriona realised that she needed to act, and the idea for Prepare Me was born.

Prepare Me creates resources for children and adults who have additional needs. Their resources are designed to support users, whatever their need, in preparing to navigate life’s everyday experiences, such as visiting the doctor, getting a haircut or going to the dentist.  

Through visual storyboards, resource packs and video modelling, Prepare Me is helping people to ‘visit and experience’ a place before actually going there in person, and is a programme that is already having a positive impact on families across the country.

What started for Caitriona as an idea born out of necessity, is now a social enterprise transforming the lives of children and adults with additional needs.

‘Changing Ireland: My Big Idea’ is now showing on Monday evenings, from 7.30-8.00pm on RTÉ One. The docuseries originally aired in March/April 2020.

To learn more about the Bank’s partnership with SEI and our continued commitment to having a positive and meaningful impact on communities across Ireland, please visit our Responsible Business Website.