Social Care Ireland Annual Conference 2024

Save the date for next years conference – 2nd and the 3rd of April 2025 in the Fairways in Dundalk!

Thank you to all the presenters and delegates that attended this years annual Social Care Ireland conference in the Radisson Blu in Cork. The conference committee rely on volunteers to make it a success and we value your feedback so we can make it even better!

This survey is for the delegates that attended the conference it will take 4 minutes to complete.

EXTENDED CONFERENCE BROCHURE

Provisional Conference Timetable

Thank you to all our sponsors have a look at the digital pack to see all that is on offer

Social Care Ireland Conference Sponsors 2024

The title of this years conference is; Beyond Registration: the challenges of equality, diversity and inclusion for social care workers and the communities they serve. The long-awaited registration for social care workers opens in November 2023. This important juncture provides the opportunity to examine the broader context within which the profession operates, beyond registration. This year’s theme seeks to address the very real challenges of growing inequality in Irish society and the crucial role played by social care workers in bringing about change. Central to this is the lived experience of marginalised and socially excluded groups in society. This conference aims to give a voice to such lived experiences and how these have brought about positive social change. We also recognise the challenges experienced by the social care workforce in an unequal society. To explore this year’s theme we welcome papers/workshop proposals that address innovative practice and give a voice to the lived experience.

PRESENTATIONS: 

DAY ONE 10TH APRIL 2024

1. Workshop: Supporting those with lived experience through trauma informed embodied practices– Maura O Donoghue

2. Policy and Practice: Exploring Equality Diversity Inclusion (EDI) principles in relation to social care student supervision on placement through the lived experience of social care workers and students – Noelle Reilly & Christina Sieber
Supporting black and brown female social care students on professional practice placement – Eileen Farrell, Dr Maeve Doyle, Wioletta Jacob and two students.

3. Workshop: Soothing the nervous system: Art and somatic exercises to counteract stress and adversity in the lives of social care workers’
– Jennifer McGarr and Marian Connell

4. Policy and Practice: ‘Relational justice and relational pedagogy in social care education– Dr Niall Hanlon

‘Embodying a trauma-informed universal design for learning in social care pedagogy – Dr Catherine Ann O’ Connell and Emma Aherne

5. Research: Co-production in action: How HIQA and Tusla co-produced a toolkit to support and enhance effective communication between children, families and foster carers and Tusla staff’ Sarah Fitzgerald and Maria MacInnes
‘Throwing out the rulebook’ sharing research learning from co-creating and co-producing research with those with lived/living or learned experiences of substance use and/or mental health challenges – Susan Barnes
‘Our lives, our voices, our future; Insights into the mental health experiences of traveller men and its implications for social care practice’.
– David Friel

6.  Research (post-grad): ‘How social care workers talk about professionalisation and how this will impact beyond registration’. – Fiona Walshe
‘Continuing professional development in times of transition; effective supervision in social care competencies & CORU’. – Michelle Coe

7. Workshop: DDP – not a parcel company – a way to deliver the relational security and connection that heals attachment rupture and early complex trauma – Sez Morse & Edwina Grant

CPD/CORU UPDATE: Beyond registration, an update on continuous professional development from Social Care Ireland – Charlotte Burke

DAY TWO THURSDAY 11TH APRIL 2024

KEYNOTE 3:  What is happening when we sit around the fire telling stories? How working together to develop coherent narratives can open our
hearts and minds, cultivate mutuality and both connect and protect us through intersectionality’. – Sez Morse & Edwina Grant

9. Workshop: ‘Supporting decision‐making in residential care with people intellectual disabilities. Making space and time for supported decision‐making and recording decision‐making supports at home and for external purposes – Moira Jenkins, Fawziya Cali, Musa Dube, Sandra Conroy, and Dr Aoife Johnson

10. Policy/Practice: ‘Amplifying the voices of Black Minority Ethnic social care students key lessons for policy and practice’ – Margaret Fingleton and Dr. Brid Ni Chonaill.
‘Motivators to sustain longevity and fulfilment in social care settings’.- Passerose Mantoy and Sarah McGillivary

11. Research (post-graduate): ‘Our Duty of Care’: Social care workers’ lived experiences of the challenging intersection between relational work and the Irish mandatory reporting system – Lena McCarthy
‘Masculinities and affective equality practices in professional social care in Ireland – Francis Gahan
‘How might we design an integrated care pathway for concerned persons? – Aoife Stack

12. Policy and Practice: ‘Informal Kinship Care- promises of policy & hopes for equality – Laura Dunleavy
‘Serving our communities – enhancing the professional knowledge of social care workers about the ways climate change disproportionately affects ethnic minorities and the socio economically disadvantaged – Dr Grainne Ketelaar

16. Policy and Practice: ‘Innovative practices in social care; bridging disability, design, and higher education – John Balfe

17. Workshop: ‘Awareness of and working with trans-gender young people – Jim Cantwell, Suzanne Walsh & Siobhan Flynn Fogarty

18. Policy and Practice:  Discussion as part of a series of results derived from the Sexual Violence Survey (SVS) which was conducted by the Central Statistics Office in 2022 – Helen McGrath

19. Workshop: ‘Interactive exploration of the use of restrictive practices using a reflective lens to identify innovative methods to eliminate and or
reduce the use of restriction – Martha Mc Ginn

Link to the book written by the key note speaker Edwina Grant on Working with Relational trauma with Children in Care

More information to follow here is a short YouTube video from the conference in 2022