UCD/Mater Family Therapy Training Programme

M.Sc. Systemic Psychotherapy

The UCD/Mater Family Therapy Training Programme now invites applications for

 Year 1 of its 4 Year Part-time

M.Sc. in Systemic Psychotherapy.

 The programme will commence in September 2017.

Psychiatrists, Psychologists, Social Workers,

Psychotherapists, Counsellors, Child Care

Workers, Teachers and Nurses are among those

who will find the course useful.

Further Information:

Contact: Ciara Reddy

Email: creddy@mater.ie

Apply on line at www.ucd.ie/apply

 

Shortlisted candidates will be called for interview

 

Clanwilliam Institute MSc in Systemic Psychotherapy

CLANWILLIAM INSTITUTE

MSc in Systemic Psychotherapy

 (Specialising in personal, couples and family therapy)

Level 9 on the National Framework of Qualifications

Clanwilliam Institute is inviting applications for

 Year 1 of its 4 Year Part-time

M.Sc. in Systemic Psychotherapy and Professional training programme.

 The programme will commence in September 2017.

Further Information:

http://www.clanwilliam.ie/training-courses/

Email: trainingadmin@clanwilliam.ie

Click below:

Clanwilliam Training

 

Pathways and Outcomes: A study of 335 referrals to the Family Welfare Conference (FWC) service in Dublin

Pathways and Outcomes: A study of 335 referrals to the Family Welfare Conference (FWC) service in Dublin.

 Dr Valerie O’Brien UCD with Hannaleena Ahonen FWC Service Leader in TUSLA, Dublin, has completed a study of the Family Welfare Conference service. The purpose of the study is threefold. Firstly, it aims to provide, through a file audit, a profile of the cases referred to the to the FWC service in the years 2011- 2013 in Dublin, Kildare and Wicklow. Secondly, it aims to capture outcomes arising in cases referred to the service and thirdly, it is intended that these findings can help in planning future FWC service provision.

 

The work builds on the work of another FTAI member, Catrina  Scanlan who was instrumental in pointing to the need for the research now published when she managed the service ​.

Family welfare conferencing is a methodology that is based on enhancing  partnership between professionals and families. It fits with many of the values that systemic therapists holds dear and to that end,  therapists should be aware that it is a service and method that has much to offer .

To view study, please see link below.

http://www.tusla.ie/uploads/content/Pathways_and_Outcomes.pdf

 

Sex Crime Victims should be able to meet offenders – Report

 

Criminal justice system ‘inherently ill-equipped’ to deal to sex crime challenges

Facing Forward report says: “Victims recognise very quickly that an adversarial criminal justice system reduces them to being a witness for the State and gives them very little opportunity to explain the impact of the abuse on their lives.”

Irish Times

Ruadhán Mac Cormaic

Mon, Dec 1, 2014, 01:00

A restorative justice system to enable victims to meet offenders should be introduced in cases of sexual violence, a new report recommends.

The study, based on 149 interviews with victims, offenders, judges and others, found strong support for the idea as a way of filling some gaps in the adversarial criminal justice system.

It found that the current courts system was “inherently ill-equipped” to address some of the challenges posed by sex crime, particularly for victims and their families, and argued that the high bar for evidence had resulted in almost 70 per cent of such cases not being prosecuted.

“Victims recognise very quickly that an adversarial criminal justice system reduces them . . . to being a witness for the State and gives them very little opportunity to explain the impact of the abuse on their lives,” according to the report, which was commissioned by Facing Forward, a voluntary organisation that advocates restorative justice methods.

Written by Dr Marie Keenan of the School of Applied Social Science at UCD and Bernadette Fahy, a counselling psychologist, it notes that fewer than one in 10 sex crime cases ever reaches the criminal justice system.

“For the vast majority of victims of sexual crime, a gulf exists between what the criminal justice system promises and what it can actually deliver.”

Sense of isolation

Victims who participated in the study spoke of their frustrations with long delays, a lack of information on how to navigate the system and the sense of isolation they felt after making reports to gardaí.

Offenders who took part in the project, among them a number of people serving life sentences, described a system that they felt encouraged them towards denial rather than acceptance of responsibility.

“Those interviewed were aware of the damage they had done to the victims and even though they were scared of meeting them, many felt they owed it to the victim they had hurt,” the report states.

The authors argue that sex crime, given its complexity and its acute psychological impact, often calls for a more flexible approach to justice than a courts system that is “by design offender-focused, with the imperative to gather evidence, to prosecute law-breaking and to punish law-breakers”.

Victims quoted in the report said that while the criminal justice system provided a sense of public validation and vindication, by virtue of their claims being believed, another form of accountability was needed.

“While refinements are certainly required to the conventional justice system, no amount of reform in that system will ever enable it to offer victims of sexual crime what they require: a victim-centred justice response.”

Idea supported

Of 23 offenders interviewed for the study, all supported the idea of introducing such a restorative justice scheme, but some expressed fear about meeting their victims and said they would not initiate it.

The report, which will be launched in Dublin today, recommended that a three-year pilot project of “restorative justice” in certain cases of sexual violence should be established “as a matter of urgency”.

Please click on link below for a copy of the Report.

Sexual Trauma and Abuse_ Restorative and Transformative Possibilities