Charlotte is a second-year PhD student in the School of Applied Social Studies.  She received a 2021 Irish Research Council Postgraduate Scholarship for her research.

Charlotte obtained her MSc in Cultural Anthropology at Utrecht University in The Netherlands in 2018. Her MA thesis 'Moral Regimes and Public Discourses: Abortion Activism in Cork, Ireland' focused on the pro-choice and pro-life activism in preparation for the referendum on the Eighth Amendment in May 2018.

Charlotte's master’s thesis defence took place four days after the referendum had taken place in Ireland. By then, she already knew that she wanted to return to conduct PhD research in order to capture experiences with abortion in Ireland after the legalisation, and thus document a process that is crucial for the evolving context of women’s reproductive rights.

School of Applied Social Studies, in association with Women’s Studies, Research Seminar

Date: Friday, 15th October 2021

Time: 11am-1pm, Friday

Venue: ORB 244

Autoethnography as a feminist methodology: Bearing witness and being witness

Dr Christine S. Davis, University of North Carolina-Charlotte

Dr Christine S. Davis, PhD, is an autoethnographic, poetic, and aesthetic ethnographer. She is a Professor of Health Communication at UNC-Charlotte, a poet, and an artist. She is a Fulbright Scholar, and writes and teaches at the intersection of contemplative and arts-based methods of understanding, and health, specifically in the areas of women and children’s health, end-of-life communication, and family disability.

She studies people with illnesses and conditions that are incurable as they face revisions in their personal identity and narrative and negotiate the liminal spaces between ‘well’ and ‘unwell,’ alive and dead, and power and marginalization. She teaches courses in Health Humanities, End-of-Life Communication, Healthcare Narratives, and Research Methods. Her most recent book, The Personal is Political: Body Politics in a Trump World (2020, Brill-Sense), was co-edited with Dr Jon Crane and is a narrative exploration of bodies affected by contemporary politics.

“CREATING SAFE SPACES IN MENTAL HEALTH SYSTEMS: CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES” 

10 NOVEMBER 2021 (ONLINE) 

SCHOOL OF APPLIED SOCIAL STUDIES AND SCHOOL OF NURSING AND MIDWIFERY, UCC

IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE CRITICAL VOICES NETWORK IRELAND AND IN PARTNERSHIP WITH ONLINEVENTS 

This year the Conference will once again revert to a 1-day online event, on 10 November 2021. We hope that, like last year, you’ll join us in making the online Conference a success! Onlinevents are our partners again this year. 

Arts, Culture and Community Development was published in July 2021 and launched online on September 16th 2021. Edited by Rosie Meade of the School of Applied Social Studies, UCC, and Mae Shaw of the University of Edinburgh, it is the seventh book in the Rethinking Community Development Series that is published by Policy Press (Series editors: Mae Shaw, Rosie Meade and Sarah Banks). 

At 3.00pm on Thursday 11 March 2021, the School of Applied Social Studies (together with Women’s Studies and CASiLaC) will co-host a webinar on Posthuman Ethics with the renowned feminist theorist, Professor Rosi Braidotti, Utrecht University.

A leading theorist of the posthuman condition, Rosi’s scholarship is in continental and feminist philosophy, at the intersection with social and political theory, cultural politics, gender, and postcolonial studies.

Sustainability and the Environment: Developing New Disciplinary Norms in the Social Professions

Wednesday, 10 March 2021, 12-2pm

Climate change and its social, cultural and economic impacts poses one of the most critical challenges of the 21st Century.  Climate change impacts are significant for populations all over the globe and lead to major challenges for front-line professionals, including those working in human services. 

Goal 13 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals refers to the need to educate populations in the causes and effects of climate change and in how human and natural ecologies are fundamentally entwined. This knowledge and awareness is essential for front-line professionals in the human services, including Social Workers, Youth Workers, Community Development Workers and healthcare workers such as Nurses and midwives. All of these professions work with individuals, families and communities in a diverse range of settings. Qualifying degree programmes in these professional areas must prepare graduates to work, lead and educate on climate change and the multiple challenges that stem from it.

Over 100 people participated in a webinar on Environmental Education in the Social Professions on Friday 6^th November, 2020.  The organisers are staff members from the School of Applied Social Studies Catherine Forde, Fiachra O Suilleabhain and Mary Hurley and Angela Flynn from the School of Nursing and Midwifery.

The Higher Diploma in Social Policy and the Postgraduate Diploma in Youth Work are being offered as part of UCC’s free or heavily-subsidised postgraduate and higher diploma places to those seeking to upskill or reskill under the Government's new Postgraduate Skills Provision initiative. 

Fees are subsidised by 90-100%.

Please see programme schedule and registration details of the Annual Critical Perspectives conference (online this year) on 10 November 2020:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/remaining-critical-about-mental-health-matters-in-pandemic-crises-tickets-119966365629

Title of the Conference:

Remaining Critical about Mental Health Matters in Pandemic Crises - 12th Annual Critical Perspectives in Mental Health Conference.

Dr Kenneth Burns, Dr Siobhan O'Sullivan and Professor Alastair Christie of the School of Applied Social Studies have received the European Social Work Research Association's 'outstanding publication award'. The award was received for a research article published in the British Journal of Social Work. This highly prestigious award is presented once a year by ESWRA for a research paper of outstanding quality. The unanimous decision by the selection committee recognised the uniqueness of the study design, impact and the quality of the research undertaken. You can read more about the paper on the journal's webpage: https://academic.oup.com/bjsw/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/bjsw/bcz083/5523053?redirectedFrom=fulltext

Full reference:

Kenneth Burns, Alastair Christie and Siobhan O'Sullivan (2019) 'Findings From a Longitudinal Qualitative Study Of Child Protection Social Workers' Retention: Job Embeddedness, Professional Confidence and Staying Narratives'. British Journal of Social Work, advance internet edition.

Professor Fred Powell delivered the keynote speech at the National Volunteering Network Conference, which took place in Athlone from 11-12 February 2020.  The theme of the conference was Sharing Knowledge: Strengthening the Future of Volunteering in Ireland.

Professor Powell's speech was entitled Volunteering and Active Citizenship: Past, Present and Future.

The official launch of the School of Applied Social Studies / ACE UCC Certificate in Social Farming Practice took place in Caherciveen, Co. Kerry on Friday 1st November 2019.

Human distress has almost exclusively been understood and responded to as either a biological disorder or a psychological deficit. This has led to the development of powerful structures, 'mental health systems', that have dominated thinking and practice around mental health and been controlled by the psychiatric profession. Despite widespread recognition that such systems are often ineffective and can even be harmful, the bio-medical ethos, with its focus on 'mental illness' and primary use of drug treatments, continues to prevail in mental health practices.

This book showcases user-centred, context-informed, non-medical ways of helping people experiencing distress. The first section of the book includes projects located inside mainstream services that seek to influence change from within; including the education of future generations of practitioners. The second section describes projects that have been established outside mainstream structures and services, giving themselves the freedom to be truly radical in their approaches and to influence by example. In a final section, the book looks at work aiming to challenge the wider societal influences that maintain the status quo and perpetuate factors that lead to mental distress.

The School of Applied Social Studies would like to congratulate all our students who graduated this week. 

13 AND 14 NOVEMBER 2019

BROOKFIELD HEALTH SCIENCES COMPLEX, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE CORK, IRELAND

REGISTRATION NOW OPEN

Booking: Email Harry Gijbels at h.gijbels@ucc.ie and make sure you give your name, and indicate the day(s) you wish to attend (either Wednesday 13 November, Thursday 14 November, 2019 or both days). Booking will be confirmed by return email. Please bring the booking confirmation slip with you to the conference registration desk on the day(s) you are attending.

Congratulations to our colleague, Professor Fred Powell, whose book The Politics of Social Work has just been published in Chinese.

The Síreacht book series features in The Irish Times today.  Published by Cork University Press, the books in the series are short, topical and provocative texts that confront controversial issues in contemporary society but do so with a distinctively Irish focus.

Edited by Dr Orla O'Donovan, Dr Fiona Dukelow and Dr Rosie R Meade from the School of Applied Social Studies, and Dr Heather Laird from the School of English, UCC, there are four titles already in bookshops and others on the way.

The editors were keen to ensure that the books are attractive to a wide readership. Therefore, authors address important and controversial topics but write accessibly, and they "take sides" in a way that invites the curiosity of the reader.

The Department of Justice & Equality is holding a competition for the purpose of creating a Locum Probation Officer panel to fill short term priority vacancies in Cork (full-time).

Closing date: 17 April 2019.

See http://www.probation.ie/EN/PB//WebPages/WP19000005 for further details.

Contact Name for this competition: Ms Jennifer O'Riordan, Probation Service, St Nicholas Church, Cove St., Cork.  Email psrecruit@probation.ie /Tel. 021-4836700.

19 March 2019, 11am - 5.30pm, CACSSS Seminar Room ORB G27 & Film and Screen Media Centre in Kane Building B10 (Basement)

Speakers:

• Joanna Sofaer, Department of Archaeology, University of Southampton
• Margaret Werry, Theatre Arts and Dance, University of Minnesota
• Anna Furse, Department of Theatre and Performance, Goldsmiths University of London
• Oonagh Kearney, Independent Film-maker

This transdisciplinary workshop, which will include a screening of Oonagh Kearney's award winning film Five Letters to the Stanger who will Dissect my Brain, is the fourth in the series of workshops in the project Living Well with the Dead in Contemporary Ireland (see https://livingwithdead.wixsite.com/website). This project aims to find new ways of thinking about, researching and responding to contemporary public disquiet in Ireland about uncared-for dead bodies.

School of Applied Social Studies and Doctor of Social Science Seminar

New Directions and Reflections for Refugee Related Research

Professor Alice Bloch (University of Manchester)

7^th February 2019

2.00-3.00pm, CACSSS Seminar Room, G27 O'Rahilly Building