Áine is a CORU registered Social Worker with extensive experience in medical and maternity social work including supporting service users and their families, assessing risk to children and vulnerable adults, policy development and relationship building with key stakeholders.

Qualifying in 2003, Áine completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Advanced Fieldwork Practice and Supervision (Social Work) which she implemented in her role as Senior Social Worker in supporting both Social Workers and students. Áine contributed to both the Bachelor of Social Work and Master of Social Work programmes in UCC and has significant experience as a Social Work Practice Teacher.

Áine developed a keen interest in child protection proceedings within a maternity social work context and undertook research in this area for completion of a Postgraduate Diploma in Child Protection and Welfare. She completed an LLM in Children’s Rights and Family Law in 2023 with her dissertation focusing on Mandatory Reporting, and how victims of abuse might be better protected in this process.

Keen to develop her skills in academia, Áine joined the School of Applied Social Studies in September 2024 as the Work Based Learning Co-Ordinator for the Master of Social Work Apprenticeship programme. Áine is passionate about lifelong learning and helping and developing the learning of others, through collaboration and muti-agency support.  

I am a lecturer in the School of Applied Social Studies and currently the year one co-ordinator of the Bachelor of Social Work programme (BSW).  I am a CORU registered, practising Social Worker since 1995.

My core duties as a lecturer include teaching, tutoring and research. I teach social work theory, practice skills, social policy analysis and child and family welfare. My research interests are in foster care, and I am drawn to lived experience with a focus on meaning making and how this is interpreted. The system in Ireland has a long history of providing alternative care, and it is important to understand the historical and socio-cultural context of this service provision to influence policy formation, promote change and to develop a more reflective approach to practice. I completed my PhD in 2024, which was an in-depth analysis of how foster carers construct their identity in the caregiving role.

Social Work Practice

As well as lecturing at the university, I have been practising social work for the last thirty years.  My role as a social worker began in 1995 when I took up a position as a Child Protection Social Worker and in the four years that followed, I built a solid foundation of knowledge and understanding of a complex system that is constantly evolving and adapting depending on changes in policy or legislation. In 2000 I joined the fostering team in the same Social Work Department and became a link social worker who supported foster carers in their role.  I became a Senior Social Work Practitioner on the fostering team five years later and that role involved promoting learning for foster carers and social workers in the field of alternative care. In total I spent 20 years recruiting, assessing, training and supporting foster carers in their role. I was in social work practice seventeen years when I decided to undertake a PhD. That decision was driven by my desire to further examine issues that kept arising in practice that I often pondered, as they were more complicated for foster carers and social workers than they appeared from the outside looking in. I regularly became concerned about the impact of these issues on children in care. The PhD was an opportunity to consider practice through a different lens. Currently, I practice as an Independent Reviewing Officer chairing foster carer reviews.

Research Interests:

• Foster care and the alternative care system in Ireland.
• Foster care national policy.
• The historical and socio-cultural context of foster care provision in Ireland.
• Phenomenological Inquiry.
• Hermeneutic Inquiry.
• Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis as a Methodological Approach.
• Critical Social Work Theory.

Claire joined the School of Applied Social Studies as a Digital Education Officer in August 2024.  Her role primarily supports the delivery of the School’s blended programmes in particular the new MSW Apprenticeship programme.

Before joining Applied Social Studies, Claire worked as a Strategic and Accreditation Data Analyst in UCC' Cork University Business School. She was also a Senior Instructional Designer in the Office of the VP for Learning and Teaching where she worked collaboratively with staff to plan, develop, manage and deliver online/blended programmes. While there, Claire developed several support resources for staff in the area of Technology Enhanced Learning and was also the lead organiser and trainer for several training initiatives including the University-wide Canvas Training Programme which trained over 1,000 UCC staff when Canvas was introduced in UCC to replace the previous VLE. 

Prior to the above, Claire held an IT project management role at State Street, a multinational fund administrator and she also worked in several short-term posts in Higher Education at UCC and the UK.

I graduated from CIT in 2006 with a Bachelors Degree in Social Care, and I worked in the Disability Sector before undertaking a Masters in Social Work in UCC in 2009, graduating in 2011.

I spent 13 years in the field of Child Protection and Welfare working in Protection and Assessment teams and with Children in Care. As a Social Work Team Leader, I managed a Therapeutic and Family Support team, a Child Protection and Welfare team, a Specialist Inquiry Team and a Children in Care team.

Throughout my time in practice, I was committed to driving learning and development initiatives for social workers. I established a peer mentoring programme and provided management support and guidance to Practice Teachers for MSW and BSW students and delivered a number of guest lectures on Child Protection in UCC.

In 2024 I joined the School of Applied Social Studies as a part-time Tutor on the MSW programme. I subsequently took up a full-time role in the School in May 2025 as a Work-Based Learning Coordinator on the Masters in Social Work Apprenticeship programme.

I have a keen interest in the areas of social work education and career development, promotion of the social work profession, child development, trauma and child care law.

Melinda Gushwa is a Senior Lecturer and Director of Practice for Social Work programmes in the School of Applied Social Studies.  She has more than 25 years practice experience as a social worker in the areas of child protection, medical social work, crisis intervention counselling, employee assistance counselling, child welfare training, community mental health practice, psychotherapy and clinical supervision. Her research focuses on child maltreatment fatalities, workforce development, trauma education, and innovation in social work education.

Dr. Gushwa has been in academia for more than 20 years, with academic and leadership appointments at the Technological University of the Shannon Midwest, Simmons University School of Social Work, Rhode Island College School of Social Work, University of Nevada Las Vegas School of Social Work and University of Wisconsin Green Bay.  She is a Visiting Professor at Simmons University, where she is the PI and Director of the Institute for Trauma Treatment in Schools, a project which provides training to school-based social work students and professional staff on the topics of trauma informed practice and worker well-being.

Sinead Hanley

Sinéad is a part-time Executive Assistant in the School of Applied Social Studies who works part-time -  9am to 10pm from Mon-Thurs incl.  Sinéad provides administrative support for the co-ordination and administration of Social Work placements in the school.

Asong has a Bachelor Degree in History with a minor in Sociology, Postgraduate Diploma in Education, Higher Diploma in Social Policy, Masters Degree in Social Work, and a PhD in Social Work. As a PhD student, Asong’s focus was on the experiences of African immigrant parents of children with disabilities availing of Irish Early Intervention services, with cultural competence as a core concept.

Asong has some work experience in marketing research and residential childcare. She has also worked in diverse social work settings as a Professionally Qualified Social Worker, Social Work Team Leader, and Senior Social Worker. These settings include child protection and welfare, intellectual disability (children and adults), HSE Safeguarding and Protection Team, hospital settings, and a Children’s Disability Network Team.

Orla McDonald

Orla is a Senior Executive Assistant in the School of Applied Social Studies having joined the school in 2006.   She graduated from UCC with a BA(English & Spanish) in 1997, an MA in Hispanic Studies in 2000 and a BCL in 2015.

Fionnuala O'Leary

Fionnuala is Manager of the School of Applied Social Studies, a role that involves working closely with the Head of School and senior management to drive the strategic development of the School.  She is responsible for the school's administrative functions and its day-to-day operations as well as managing the school's financial and budgetary functions.  Fionnuala has 25 years experience as a School Manager. She holds a Diploma in Management from the UK's Institute of Leadership & Management.  

Her role includes:

• Executive responsibility for the administrative systems that support the School's teaching, learning and research activities.
• Working with the Head of School on managerial and operational matters. 
• Managing the school's financial and budgetary functions.
• Responsibility for leading and managing the school's administrative staff.
• Working with the Head of School and Vice-Heads to drive the strategic development of the school.
• Managing local HR functions such as part-time staff contracts and pay, studentships and scholarships.
• Liaising with the school's external stakeholders.
• Membership of the School's Executive Management Committee.
• Chairing the School's Risk Register Committee.
• Membership of the CACSSS College Executive Management Committee (2022-2025). 

Margaret O'Leary

Margaret is an Executive Assistant in the School of Applied Social Studies having joined the school's administrative staff in early 2022.  She provides administrative support to the Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) and the Masters of Social Work (MSW)/Postgrad. Dip. in Social Work Studies programmes.  

Margaret graduated from UCC with a BA in History and Spanish in 1989 and a Diploma in Computer Science in 1990.

Phil O'Sullivan

Phil joined the School's administrative staff in 2001 having previously worked in UCC's Careers Service and in the private sector.  She was promoted to Administrative Assistant (Grade V) in 2023.  Phil holds a Diploma in Social Studies from UCC.  

Phil is a very experienced administrator who provides admin. support to the School's social science and social policy programmes.  She is a member of the BSocSc course team. 

Phil's main duties include the following:

Programme Administrator for one undergraduate and two postgraduate programmes in Social Policy.  This involves supporting approximately 380 students per year and the related academic staff teams.

Social Work Placements administration working directly with the Placements Co-Ordinator as well as external Practice Teachers and placement supervisors in social work agencies. Approximately 160 placements are organised and administered each year.

Exams Co-Ordinator for the School with responsibility for organising and administering collection, distribution, tracking and return of a high volume of exam scripts and the subsequent uploading of marks in co-operation with academic colleagues.

Administrative Support and Liaison for Fitness to Practice including membership of the University Fitness to Practice Committee.

The appointment of Mary McDermott, CEO of Safe Ireland (Mary McDermott - Safe Ireland) as an Adjunct Professor to the School of Applied Social Studies for three years from 2002 has made a  significant and unique contribution to University College Cork, particularly regarding the production of new knowledge and understandings of Domestic Sexual and Gender-based Violence (DSGBV) that will help us learn better ways of living together.  

Through her work with Safe Ireland, Mary McDermott contributes vociferously to reframing public discourses of DSGBV and re-naming sex as a necessary core category in 21st century equality struggles, politics and policy making. Identifying language as a key battleground and conduit for social transformation, her work also strives to establish sex, gender and sexuality as key concepts in contemporary debates about social policy and the social professions.  Mary McDermott’s knowledge, experience and scholarly record, which are shared through a series of public seminars, will enrich the University’s discourses, practices and research agendas on issues related to DSGBV into the future.