John Hastings

Position:  Practice Tutor and Lecturer

Email:  j.hastings@ucc.ie

Phone:  021-4905308

Education/Qualifications:  MSc Advanced Healthcare Practice, BSc (Hons) Occupational Therapy

Profile:  Following completion of his primary degree in Occupational Therapy at University of Ulster in 2002, John worked as an occupational therapist in the public sector for 5 years in the area of adult mental health addressing clients’ needs in a variety of hospital and community based settings.

In the Seychelles Islands he had the novel opportunity of collaboratively designing, delivering, and evaluating a new undergraduate programme in Occupational Therapy with local occupational therapists to attain WFOT approved standards. John draws on his undergraduate, postgraduate and lecturing experiences to support students and educators in his current role as Practice Tutor in the regional remit of West Cork, Kerry, and in Cork paediatric services.

His Master’s research focused on the attitudes of undergraduate occupational therapy students towards mental health service users before and after their practice education experiences. As a PhD candidate, John’s interests include narrative, occupation across the lifespan, the oldest old generation, and rural living. 

Shelley Mack

Position:  Practice Tutor – Mental Health

Geographical/Clinical Area Covered: Cork/Cork North/Dublin as required.

Email: shelley.mack@hse.ie

Phone: 086-7871133

Education/Qualifications:

• BSc.OT. 
• P.G Certs: Health Management/Supervision/Human Resources & Training/Advanced Healthcare Practice
• Dip: Life &Business Coaching

Profile: NZ & Irish Registered OT.  Member of the AOTI Mental Health Advisory Committee.

Shelley obtained her Occupational Therapy degree in NZ and has worked as an OT in NZ, UK & Ireland across a range of different areas including alcohol addiction/acute & enduring mental ill-health/accident compensation assessment/Community Adult Physical.

She worked for 4 yrs as Training & Development Manager for Framework Charitable Trust (NZ), and on Health Promotion contracts for Mental Health Foundation of NZ (Suicide Prevention/Depression Awareness/Caring for the Carer) and Age Concern NZ.  Two notable pieces of work in NZ in the 90’s  was the supervision of translaters working for the Refugees as Survivors service ( a new service) and the setting up of an Older Persons Network which is still thriving.

In 2005, Shelley took up a fulltime post at UCC in the position of Practice Education Regional Educator for the BSC.OT. degree course. Later that year and until 2009 two days of her time were designated to assisting the development of and lecturing on the Year 3 programme. During this time Shelley became the Department representative for the European Network of Occupational Therapists in Higher Education and initiated the facility for UCC OT student representatives  to attend annually. She presented papers in Vienna in 2005 and Turkey in 2006, and took responsibility for organising the ENOTHE conference held in Cork in 2007.

In 2010 she was appointed to the post of Mental Health Practice Tutor.

Shelley has particular interests in mental health, supervision for health professionals, Life Coaching/life style design and  natural health & healing.

Miriam O'Tuathaigh

Position: Practice Tutor based in Cork University Hospital

Geographical Area Covered: Cork City Acute Hospitals (physical)

Email: miriam.otuathaigh@hse.ie  

Phone: 086-7872215

Education/Qualifications:

• BSc Occupational Therapy (Brunel University, London) 2002
• BSc Social Science (University College Cork) 1998

Profile:  Having graduated from Brunel University in 2002, I worked in a community drug and alcohol service in London, in both a generic keyworker and occupational therapist capacity.

I then established an occupational therapy service on acute wards in a mental health hospital in central London. On return to Ireland, I worked in St Brendan’s mental health hospital in Dublin covering acute wards and also a period in a homeless service for men with mental health issues in the community.

I have always had an interest in both mental health and adult physical occupational therapy, so I then moved into the physical field, taking up a position in Kerry General Hospital. Here, I working across a wide range of areas including care of the elderly, general medicine, surgery, hand therapy and palliative care. I worked for a period as a community occupational therapist in Kerry. I then went onto establish an occupational therapy service in a palliative care unit.

From this, I moved to Cork University Hospital as a practice tutor and clinican with the Care of the Elderly team. As practice tutor I visit students in the acute hospitals in Cork city; Mercy University Hospital, South Infirmary Victoria University Hospital, St Finbarrs Hospital (rehabilitation unit) and The Bon Secours Hospital.

Clinically my areas of interest are stroke, palliative care and cognition. I completed a masters module in cognition, communication and capacity in UCC. I still remain interested in mental health OT, while not directly working in this area at present.

Anne Marie Norris

Position: Practice Tutor

Geographical Area Covered: Waterford.

Email: annemarie.norris@hse.ie 

Phone: 087-6484569

Profile: Anne Marie was awarded an MSc (Hons) degree in Occupational Therapy from Glasgow Caledonian University in 2014. Anne Marie worked in St James Hospital Dublin from 2015 to 2018 gaining experience as a basic grade therapist in the areas of medicine and surgery, neuro rehabilitation, stroke rehabilitation, orthopedics and care of the elderly.  During this time, Anne Marie completed an introductory program to  Bobath Therapy for working with people within neuro-rehabilitation. In addition, Anne Marie was involved in the co-ordination and supervision of several student placements from Trinity University during her time at St James Hospital.

In 2018 Anne Marie took up the post as staff grade therapist working within hand therapy in University Hospital Waterford (UHW) and has completed the BATH level 1 Hand Therapy programme.  In November 2018 Anne Marie commenced in the role of Practice Tutor facilitating and coordinating OT placements from University College Cork. Anne Marie currently works 0.5 hours clinically within UHW covering ICU, CCU and outpatient hand therapy and the remaining 0.5 hours as Practice Tutor for the Waterford area covering acute, primary care and mental health services.