Booking for the event closes on Monday 14th October. 

Event fee includes lunch and refreshments. Please let us know of any specific dietary requirements you have (coeliac, lactose intolerant, etc.) by emailing cpdofficer@iasw.ie on or before 9th October. 

The IASW National Social Work Conference will focus on human rights, a core principle underpinning social work. The day will consider how social work upholds human rights in practice and will highlight the leadership role of social work in building capacity with individuals and systems, putting and maintaining human rights and social justice at the centre of our responses. 

We would be delighted if you could join us on the day and take part with us in shaping the thinking and response of the social work profession as we consider how best to refocus our energies and actions, individually and collectively.  

 PROGRAMME

Workshops

Workshops take place twice, before and after lunch facilitating conference delegates to attend two of the three workshops.

Advanced Practice – Co-Constructing the Social Work Pathway (Workshop 1 co-chaired by Kerry Cuskelly, CEO Exchange House Ireland National Travellers Service & Sinéad Fitzpatrick, Development Manager, National HSCPO, HSE)

The workshop will consider Advanced Practice in social work across health and social care settings. Presentations from Sinéad Fitzpatrick and social workers Phil Butler and Niamh Finucane. It will

• Outline the key components of the HSE HSCPO Advanced Practice Framework
• Involve workshop participants in considering how to build a model for AP in social work, identifying opportunities to develop AP competencies
• Examine what is required to formally recognise current, relevant social work practices and competencies as Advanced Practice

Affirming Human Rights through Capacity Building (Workshop 2 chaired by Geraldine Farren, Principal Social Worker, QPS, HSE Dublin & North East Acute Hospitals)

Social workers are highly skilled in supporting and facilitating capacity building with individuals and groups and creating environments where people can make decisions for themselves. The principles underpinning the ADMCA 2015 have long been embedded in social work practice. This workshop will present practice examples and provide the opportunity to reflect on the skills, knowledge and professional qualities we bring to this work and to identify some of the practice wisdom generated. Presentations from social workers Ciara Reilly, Renee Summers, Joe Nelis and Caroline O'Meara. 

Expanding our World View (Workshop 3 co-chaired by Mary Hurley & Colletta Dalikeni)

This workshop aims to broaden our understanding of social work by examining two perspectives: anti-racist social work and ecosocial work. Both shift our view beyond the limitations of the prevailing Eurocentric perspectives that tend to dominate social work education and thinking in Ireland and support social workers to think and act differently in how we relate to each other and to the world around us, broadening our understanding of human rights and social justice in social work. Presentations will be made by the workshop chairs, both of whom are social workers. 

Speaker Biographies

Michael O' Flaherty was elected by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in January 2024. He is the fifth Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, succeeding Dunja Mijatović (2018-2024), Nils Muižnieks (2012-2018), Thomas Hammarberg (2006-2012) and Álvaro Gil-Robles y Gil-Delgado (1999-2006). The Commissioner's mandate lasts for six years and is non-renewable.

An Irish human rights lawyer, O' Flaherty has served as Director of the EU Fundamental Rights Agency (2015-2023), as a member of the United Nations Human Rights Committee (2004-2012), as Chief Commissioner of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (2011-2013), and in various posts at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, notably in setting up operations in conflict-affected countries such as Sierra Leone and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Throughout his decades-long commitment to human rights, he has made significant contributions to their promotion and protection, including through the publication of books and articles and through teaching at various universities.

Jung Rin Kim is a Human Rights Officer in the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Section of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). She has over twenty years of experience in the field of human rights, particularly economic, social and cultural rights, both within and outside the UN. Her current work focuses on the right to work and the right to social security, involving global advocacy, capacity building, legal and policy advice and programming. She has worked with the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Field Operations and Technical Cooperation Division (headquarters and field) and the National Human Rights Commission in Korea. She has also taught a course on non-profit management at the Graduate School on NGO Studies, Sungkongheo University in Seoul, Korea. In 2024, she collaborated with the IFSW to deliver a short course on Connecting Social Work Practitioners with The UN Human Rights Mechanisms and the OHCHR.

Kathleen Lynch is Professor of Equality Studies (Emerita) at University College Dublin (UCD). She is also a serving member of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC). Over three decades, she played a pioneering role in establishing and directing both the Equality Studies Centre and the School of Social Justice in UCD. Both her research and teaching were built on collaborations with social justice activists, inside and outside the University.

A visiting scholar in many of the world’s leading universities, she has authored a several books and academic articles on all types of equality and social justice issues, especially on education, and on the relationship between equality, care and social justice. Her more recent books are Affective Equality: Love, Care and Injustice (with J. Baker et al.) (2009), New Managerialism in Education: Commercialisation, Carelessness and Gender (2015) (with B. Grummell and D. Devine), and  Care and Capitalism: Why Affective Equality Matters for Social Justice, Polity Press, Cambridge (2022). Her forthcoming book, A Critique of Human Capital in Education will be published in 2025 by Routledge. Her work has been translated into a number of languages including, Spanish, Korean, Italian, Chinese, and Bulgarian. Affective Equality (2009) is currently being translated into Turkish.

She was awarded the UCD Medal for Pioneering Change, in 2018, and the Irish Research Council, President of Ireland Prize for her research promoting Equality and Social Justice, in 2019.

Outside of academia, Kathleen has been active as a public intellectual. She has served as an Adviser on Education and the Social Sciences to the European Commission (DGEAC), as an Appeals Commissioner in the Department of Education, and as a Board member on many public and voluntary bodies. She is currently a member of the steering committee for the international initiative Human Education in the 3rd Millennium which published a new declaration for education, Educating Humanity for the Third Millennium: A Global Declaration 2024 https://humaneducation.net/declaration

Caoimhe Gleeson is General Manager for the National Office for Human Rights and Equality Policy at the Health Service Executive (HSE). Caoimhe is the HSE representative on the Inter-departmental Steering Board for the implementation of the Assisted Decision Making (Capacity) Act 2015. Caoimhe has responsibility for the oversight of HSE National Consent Policy, oversight of the implementation programme to support compliance with the Assisted Decision Making (Capacity) Act 2015 in the HSE and works to progress equality, human rights advocacy and policy issues for people with disabilities and other diverse groups in Ireland.

Caoimhe holds a BA, an LLB, a master’s degree in Community Development, a professional diploma in Equality and Human Rights, is a trained mediator and is a candidate for the Barrister at Law degree at the Honorable Society of King’s Inns.  Caoimhe is deputy chair of the National Research Ethics Committee for Clinical Trials. She is a board member of the CORU Social Workers Registration Board.

Caoimhe has contributed to a number of publications on equality and human rights issues. She co-edited “The Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act 2015- personal and professional reflections” with Professor Mary Donnelly, School of Law, UCC.