This IASW online event on National Adult Safeguarding Day 2024 is a call to action to promote rights based adult safeguarding in Ireland. It provides an opportunity to reflect on the role social work advocacy has played to date in reform of our archaic adult safeguarding system. The event highlights lessons and pitfalls in adult safeguarding policy and practice in Ireland. It calls for commitment to a values and rights based approach where organisations and staff listen to and work with adults at risk of harm, placing their rights, their will and preferences at the heart of practice.

Speakers include newly appointed HSE Chief Social Worker Amanda Casey who will explore the pitfalls and learning in adult safeguarding to date, along with plans for the development of adult safeguarding in social work in our health service. Amanda is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Social Work in the School of Social Work, Social Justice and Social Policy University College Dublin and is a social worker with a strong and long record of speaking up for rights based approaches.

Also speaking is Senator Tom Clonan. For over 25 years, Senator Clonan has been a tireless campaigner for the rights of others, as an army whistleblower on gender based violence and as a parent campaigning for the rights of children and adults with disabilities and older people. He was a leading voice in the recent Care Referendum, highlighting how much of the Irish political and advocacy sector failed to understand or advocate for the rights of people with disabilities. Senator Clonan will share his perspectives on the importance of rights based safeguarding and what Ireland needs to do next.

Provisional Programme

12.00   Welcome by Chair of IASW Vivian Geiran.

12.05   Social Work Activism in Adult Safeguarding will focus on IASW actions and achievements in recent years. It provides honest reflections post Care Referendum on the need for social work as a profession to truly listen to the people we work with.

12.15    ‘Lessons and Developments: Adult Safeguarding in the Health Service Executive.’ Chief Social Worker, Health Service Executive Amanda Casey – Amanda will reflect on lessons from Emily and McIlroy report and will highlight plans for change in adult safeguarding in the HSE.

12.30    ‘What Does Rights Based Safeguarding Really Look Like?’ Senator Tom Clonan will share his perspectives on rights based safeguarding.

12.50    Q & A

1.00     Close

Twitter handle  #safeguardingday24

Speaker Biographies

Amanda Casey has recently taken up her role as the first Chief Social Worker for the HSE. She qualified as a Social Worker in Trinity College Dublin in 1996 and has worked in a variety of settings since that time, including Adoption and Fostering and Medical Social Work. She has also held a hospital group role as Implementation Lead for Assisted Decision Making and Adult Safeguarding. She is Adjunct Assistant Professor of Social Work in the School of Social Work, Social Justice and Social Policy University College Dublin. Amanda has post graduate qualifications in Leadership and Quality Improvement with the RCPI and Lean Six Sigma for Healthcare with UCD.

Amanda has a strong interest in the promotion of human rights across all health and social care services. In the same way that health isn’t simply the lack of illness, safeguarding is about more than reducing harm. In its broadest sense it is about promoting and protecting rights, supporting choice and creating environments that scaffold this and at the other end responding to harm in a robust, proportionate and person centred way.

Senator Tom Clonan

For over 25 years, Senator Clonan has been a tireless campaigner for the rights of others, as an army whistleblower on gender based violence and as a parent campaigning for the rights of children and adults with disabilities and older people. He was a leading voice in the recent Care Referendum, highlighting how much of the Irish political and advocacy sector failed to understand or advocate for the rights of people with disabilities. On 8^th November, Senator Clonan will share with IASW, his perspectives on the importance of rights based safeguarding and what Ireland needs to do next.