The course has been funded by the HSCP Office, HSE. As such, places are available to social workers in the publicly funded healthcare service only.

Social work has 7 places on this interdisciplinary course which is a collaboration led by the IASW with IASLT, ISCP, SCI and IIRRT.

To apply for a place, please complete the application form on this page and email to cpdofficer@iasw.ie

The Mindfulness-based Health and Social Care (MBHSC) group programme is a unique mindfulness-based programme which focusses on improving the self-care and practice of health and social care professionals. MBHSC is a theory and evidence-informed programme which focusses on reducing stress, emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation of service users/patients, improving well-being and a range of practice skills and competencies. 

MBHSC will be delivered over a 6-week period from Tuesday 29^th October. Single weekly sessions will be 1.5 hours in duration from 6 -7.30pm each week on

• 29th October
• 5th November 
• 12th November
• 19th November
• 26th November
• 3rd December   

Weekly sessions will be facilitated online on MSTeams by Dr. Alan Maddock. Dr. Maddock is a professionally qualified social worker who specialised in mental health social work, and is currently a Lecturer in Psychology. Dr. Maddock developed the MBHSC programme, is a trained mindfulness facilitator, and has over 10 years mindfulness meditation experience.

Programme Structure

Each session will adhere to a standardised protocol and will cover health and social care practice exercises and topics which were examined within the context of mindfulness.

The course structure will consist of:

Week 1: Introduction to mindfulness: theory and practice.

Week 2: Mindfulness for health and social care practice: Stress, the thinking process, avoidant coping, and decentering.

Week 3: Approach coping: Attachment, aversion, negative thinking, and approach coping.

Week 4: Acceptance – the thinking process, approach coping, and staying present with service users/patients.

Week 5: Self-Compassion – the thinking process, approach coping, and staying present with service users/patients.

Week 6: Embedding mindfulness in our everyday lives and practice.

Each session will introduce different mindfulness-based practices (e.g. mindful body scanning, mindful yoga) and psychoeducation on the potential role that mindfulness could play in our self-care, and professional practice. Participants will be provided with psychoeducation on practical ways in which to apply the experiential learning attained from these practices when confronted with stressful personal and/or practice situations. The development of mindfulness is predicated upon regular and repeated practice, thus participants will be requested to engage in daily mindfulness-based homework exercises for 20 minutes per day, for 6 out of the 7 days, between sessions.  Each session will include practice role plays and discussion. This will allow participants to have an opportunity to apply their evolving experiential learning to a practice case context.