News Archive: Jan - June 2025
Marian Lynch Medal Winners
Congratulations to our most recent Marian Lynch medal winners who were presented with their medals by course director, Joe Whelan.
This award was commissioned in 2006 by classmates of Marian Lynch, a Junior Sophister BSS student who died in May of that year. Marian greatly enjoyed her course, in particular the Community Work module which reflected her deep affection for and commitment to her own community, the Liberties. Each year, the medal is awarded to each member of the group who achieve the highest mark in the Senior Fresh Community Work project .
Pictured left to right; Lynsey Boylan , Adefunke Agbabiaka, Joe Whelan (Course Director) and James Carey.
Well done!
March 27, 2025
First-year PhD Student Danielle Young awarded a grant from the European Society of Contraception and Reproductive Health
First-year PhD Student Danielle Young, supervised by Dr. Louise Caffrey and Dr. Catherine Conlon, has been awarded a grant from the European Society of Contraception and Reproductive Health. This grant will be used to develop a data collection infrastructure for GP administered early medical abortion in Ireland. This work is part of ongoing work of Catherine Conlon in partnership with the Southern Task-Force on Abortion a Reproductive Topics (START), a GP-led group of abortion providers in Ireland, to improve and monitor abortion service delivery.
March 25, 2025
Lived Experiences of Foster Care:Messages from Research for Practice
Join us for the next TRiCC seminar online (Zoom) on Monday 28th April at 1pm. Chaired by Dr Yekaterina Chzhen and presented by Sinéad Tobin and Dr Sinéad Whiting, the seminar will focus on children’s lived experience of foster care.
Register here: https://tcd-ie.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_G247js9ITSSx41PUDpR2dQ
Sinéad Tobin’s presentation will draw on findings from two research projects relating to foster care placement breakdown. In contrast to the dominant quantitative knowledge base on this topic, Sinéad’s presentation will focus on children and young people’s lived experiences of placement breakdown. The presentation will conclude with offering key messages for practice.
Dr. Sinéad Whiting’s presentation will explore findings from a qualitative study involving 22 young adults who grew up in foster care with permanence in Ireland. The presentation will focus on the participants' descriptions of their relationships with their foster carers and the various ways they developed a sense of permanence throughout their time in long-term foster care. It will highlight the co-creation of permanence between the young adults and their foster carers, offering insights into the dynamics that contributed to their sense of stability and belonging.
March 24, 2025
14th European Conference for Social Work Research (ECSWR)
Associate Professor Susan Flynn, Assistant Professors Erna O'Connor, Sinéad Whiting and Sinéad Tobin and Kevin Ryan, Senior Social Work Practitioner, St James’ Hospital, Dublin and external contributor to the BSS and MSW programmes, participated in the 14th European Conference for Social Work Research (ECSWR) which took place from 12-14 March 2025, at the Katholische Stiftungshochschule, Munich, Germany. The ECSWR is the biggest annual social work research event in Europe. This year's conference theme was "Embracing Democracy in Social Work Practice and Research"
Presentations from the School of SWSP were as follows:
A policy content analysis of 'Children First: National Guidance for the Protection and Welfare of Children' (2017) examining the utility and relevance of Children First for disabled children.
Dr Susan Flynn, School of Social Work & Social Policy, Trinity College, Dublin.
Mr Haocheng Shi, School of Social Work & Social Policy, Trinity College, Dublin.
Experiences of a tutor-led, pilot placement programme in a healthcare context, through a Communities of Practice lens.
Dr Erna O’Connor & Dr Sinead Whiting, School of Social Work & Social Policy, Trinity College, Dublin.
Ms Paula Markey & Mr Kevin Ryan, Social Work Service, St James’ Hospital, Dublin.
Ms Jo Greene, PhD Research Scholar, the SPHeRE Programme
Permanence Display : Evidence of the co-creation of permanence in long-term foster care
Dr Sinéad Whiting, School of Social Work & Social Policy, Trinity College, Dublin.
Opening the Doors: a practitioner in academia and an academic in practice
Ms Sinead Tobin, School of Social Work and Social Policy, Trinity College Dublin & Principal Social Worker, Office of Chief Social Worker, Tusla Child and Family Agency.
March 24, 2025
Congratulations to SWSP PhD students
Congratulations to SWSP PhD students, Wenyu Li and Jianing Zhu who presented on their research at the I-ARoA (Ireland's Network on Research on Ageing in Asia) seminar on 14 February 2025 at the UCD Geary Institute for Public Policy. Both presentations were very well received by the attendees from across multiple academic disciplines and NGO’s. Ireland's Network of Research on Ageing in Asia (I-ARoA) was founded in 2023 by Dr Catherine Elliott O’Dare, School of Social Work and Social Policy TCD and Dr Naonori Kodate, School of Social Policy, Social Work and Social Justice, UCD. The aims of I-ARoA are to connect PhD scholars in Ireland researching ageing in Asia and their supervisors, provide a supportive and collaborative network for members, and provide opportunities for members to share expertise, knowledge, and experience. It achieves these aims through regular network meetings and organising research-focused events. TCD, UCD and Maynooth University comprise current membership. New members are welcome, please contact Catherine at elliot@tcd.ie if you are interested in joining the network.
March 21, 2025
Prosperity without Growth - Public Lecture and Discussion
The School of Social Work & Social Policy is delighted to host Professor Mario Pansera who will deliver a public lecture entitled Prosperity with Growth. This is a free event and full details and tickets can be found here
March 19, 2025
Sherie de Burgh commemorative seminar jointly hosted by One Family and the School of Social Work and Social Policy
The theme for this year’s Sherie de Burgh commemorative seminar jointly hosted by One Family and the School of Social Work and Social Policy in Trinity College Dublin was ‘Contact with Children Following Separation: Practice to Policy NGO–TCD Research Collaborations’.
Dr Simone McCaughren led the One Family commissioned research project which formed the focus for this year's commemoration lecture. This research resulted in the publication of an interdisciplinary report and Guidance on Contact Time for Infants and Young Children in Separated Families. Together with Professor Stephanie Holt, Dr Aisling Parkes (School of Law, UCC) and Soma Gregory (Research Assistant), this ground-breaking piece of work provided a cross disciplinary perspective spanning social work/policy, law and psychology of the considerations for very young children in family law proceedings in Ireland. This ambitious research study was empirical in nature and engaged with various dimensions of the legal system, which has been untouched by research to date.
Chaired by the Head of School, Dr Catherine Conlon, speakers included: Dr Simone McCaughren (Principal Investigator of Research Report: Contact time for infants and young children in separated families); Geraldine Kelly, One Family’s Director of Parenting and Professional Development Services; Andrew Munro – Head of Policy and Legislation for Civil Justice, Assistant Secretary General in the Department of Justice overseeing the development of the Family Justice Reform; His Honour Judge Geoffrey Shannon – Former Law Society director and current Circuit Court judge, Dr Shannon was Special Rapporteur on Child Protection for the Irish Government 2006-19 and is the author independent report into historical child sex-abuse allegations in St John Ambulance 2023. The full research team joined a panel discussion chaired by Prof Stephanie Holt and the event was closed by Karen Kiernan, CEO of One Family.
Sherie was a person of infinite compassion particular for anyone encountering bumps in life’s path which remains the core of One Family’s work who are at the coalface of practice working with children and families navigating very complex systems, and oftentimes experiencing social injustice. One Family understand that knowledge production is a shared endeavour, and that building knowledge is not just a one-way flow, it is a collaborative iterative process and is intended to build new knowledge for the purpose of taking social action. Most importantly, One Family, respect the voices of those with lived experiences and see them as an essential and fundamental part of the research process – where experiences are recognised and valued.
And so this research grew from the ground up. It attempted to gain a bird’s eye view of how and in what ways, contact arrangements for infants and young children in the 0-6 years are navigated where parents are parenting separately. In addition, it sought to understand how those arrangement are managed and how the perspectives of this young children can be listened to. The School of Social Work and Social Policy at TCD who collaborate with One Family commemorating Sherie annually were delighted this year to showcase a research partnership between the School and One Family. The large attendance and deep interest on the evening, combined with the policy and justice imperative of progressing this issue demonstrated by Andrew Monro talking from a Department of Justice perspective and Judge Geoffrey Shannon, talking from a judicial perspective highlighted to us the value of forums to discuss and debate this topic and we expect to come back to it in our Schools seminar series again soon. Watch this space!
March 4, 2025
Sixth Annual Sherie de Burgh Commemorative Event
The theme for this year’s event is: Contact with Children Following Separation: Practice to Policy NGO–TCD Research Collaborations.
The sixth annual Sherie de Burgh commemorative seminar jointly hosted by One Family and the School of Social Work and Social Policy in Trinity College Dublin will explore the experiences of one-parent families in Ireland and reflect on their joint research, which illustrates a practice-to-policy approach and can be accessed here:
Guidance on Contact Time for Infants and Young Children in Separated Families
Event Details
If you wish to attend this event in person on the day, please find the event details and registration form below.
Date: Thursday, 13 February 2025
Time: 5.30pm – 7pm
Programme
Registration will take place between 5pm – 5.30pm. Please come early to register your details and attendance in person only if have not pre-registered online using the form below.
Seminar: 5.30pm – 7pm
Reception: from 7pm
Location
Trinity Research in Social Sciences (TRiSS)
TRiSS Seminar Room
6th Floor, Sutherland Centre
Arts Building, Trinity College Dublin
Streaming link: on the day, the event will be available to watch on YouTube here .
Summer school opportunity to travel to Germany and learn about disability and child welfare!
Summer school opportunity to travel to Germany and learn about disability and child welfare! Limited spaces available, see here for more information and to apply by 1st of February.
Jan 16, 2025
Head of School and Associate Prof Catherine Conlon, together with Prof Virpi Timonen, University of Helsinki and Dr Geraldine Foley, School of Medicine, Trinity College have authored a new paper for the Qualitative Research Journal entitled 'Quality in qualitative research:a relational process
Head of School and Associate Prof Catherine Conlon, together with Prof Virpi Timonen, University of Helsinki and Dr Geraldine Foley, School of Medicine, Trinity College have a paper just out in Qualitative Research Journal entitled 'Quality in qualitative research: a relational process' available on Open Access here
The paper argues that quality in qualitative research cannot be ensured with the help of checklists alone. We assert that quality in qualitative research is a set of relationships, threaded through the entire research process, between the researcher and the researched topic, participants, data, data analysis and audience. It sets out how the foundations of qualitative inquiry, across all paradigms, demand an engaged, committed researcher attending iteratively and with care – relationally – to every stage of the research process in pursuit of quality. The key novel contribution of this paper is its argument that adopting a relational ethic of commitment to quality at each stage of the research process is conducive towards high-quality qualitative research. The paper will be useful for established qualitative researchers, doctoral students, postgraduate and undergraduate students engaging in qualitative social research, in particular for its elaboration of parsimonious quality criteria specific to qualitative research.
Jan 14, 2025
Joe Whelan publishes a new textbook with Policy Press!
Joe Whelan's latest book 'Critical Theory for Social Work' is published and available. The books aims to introduce interested readers to Critical Theory in an accessible and interesting way. The companion website for the book is also live and includes a full lesson plan, a full and adaptable slide deck and a set of short explanatory video clips. The materials available on the companion website are designed for instructors to make the text easy to adopt as a core text for teaching social work students about critical social theory. The book and accompanying materials are designed to be accessible and to be used across jurisdictions, so please feel free to share widely and get in touch with Joe if you have any questions.
The book is published by Policy Press. To access materials and find out more about the book, see links below:
https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/critical-theory-for-social-work
https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/critical-theory-for-social-work/online-resources
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLP899GzKi9xV8JAUUrDqmCvHWlq89g3hD
Jan 8, 2025