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Events
From Lived Experience to Collective Shared Wisdom: Positioning experiential knowledge in third level teaching and practice.
- Time
- 12.30pm - 2pm
- Date
- 24 Sep 2025
- Duration
- 90 minute(s)
- Location
- O'Rahilly Building, CACSSS Seminar Room
- Registration Required
- No
ISS21 Disability and Mental Health Cluster Seminar
Presenter: Sinead Pierce, Peer Support Worker, HSE & Lived Experience Informed Educator, UCC
Abstract
In this presentation, Sinead will explore the role of experiential knowledge in mental health peer work and third level education, with a focus on the lived experience perspective. She will examine the importance of lived experience as a legitimate and valuable form of knowledge, while also addressing its frequent marginalisation as a form of epistemic injustice. Discussion will highlight the complexities of transforming individual lived experiences into collective knowledge, acknowledging the challenges this process entails. The presentation will also seek to explore how third level institutions can better engage with the multifaceted nature of experiential knowledge and foster environments that support transformative, collective, and reciprocal understanding.
Speaker Bio
Sinéad works as a Peer Support Worker with an Early Intervention in Psychosis service (HSE) and as a Third Level Educator (UCC) where she lectures in several departments and is a member of the Academic Council. She worked in the field of community arts as a coordinator and facilitator for 20 years and is passionate about the transformative role that creativity can play in fostering inclusion, change and meaningful connections. In her current roles she draws on lived experience to support others on their recovery journeys and embeds experiential knowledge into third level education and professional development. As a Geography graduate, Sinéad has a strong interest in how a sense of place and spatial relationships shape our lived experience - an awareness that continues to inform her approach to mental health practice. Sinead is a mam of 3 and in her spare time likes to play piano and whistle, sing, weave words together and is at her happiest out and about exploring the wilds.