Don’t talk at me, talk to me: critically reflecting on patient/practitioner relationships through a moral discourse.

In this blog, I want to revisit the issue of the impact my professional privilege and power, in the clinical space, has on services users. My current research interest focuses on caring masculinities amongst Irish fathers of children with a disability. I originally set out to explore these father’s caring experiences, through a critical theory,...

​Mind the Gap: Delayed Transfer of Care from an Approved Centre in Ireland – making the invisible, visible

Between 2013 and 2017, I worked as mental health social worker in an Irish setting. From 2014, I focused mainly on in-patient setting and social work. This role was new and was a departure from the community team-based social worker and focus was on a separate service; access to social work service on a day...

Nothing about me, without me; Supporting decision making in a mental health setting and the fidelity of the practice, a reflective discussion

2018, new challenges abound for social work. The next few series of blog articles will try and focus on practice issues and ethics or human rights from my perspective. Irish social work faces many challenges in mental health. However, there are many practice issues we can begin to get stuck into and develop with the...

Trauma Informed Care (TIC) Practice in an Irish in-patient mental health setting; a clinical social worker’s reflection

The issue of trauma, in mental health settings, has been increasingly seen as important in recognising it as part of a person’s recovery in an in-patient setting. In this blog I will reflect on the issue of trauma informed care practice and case management work through mental health care plans. Recent work I have been...

Listening to hard topics with soft ears; Reflecting on Safeguarding Adults in an Irish mental health setting

During my qualitative research experiences, listening to hard topics with soft ears, stuck with me as I wrote about social work topics. For me, it embodies social work practice skills, across all settings.  In 2017, one such topic that requires social work listening skills; safeguarding adults. In years gone by, several high profile residential care scandals...

Prometheus Bound; Social work roles and values, case management skills in an Irish mental health setting

For the social work profession, Twitter accounts and blogs, are increasingly being seen as a new space for practitioners to reflect on emerging practice and ethical issues. Anyone who follows my own account @AodhanC will have seen my countless reflections through ethical and epistemic lenses. The curator of this social work blog; Joe Mooney, has...