Southern Region

Frank O’Driscoll

This was a busy year for the Southern Region Branch, the highlight being the hosting of the biennial Social Work Conference in UCC on 23-10-09. This was held jointly with UCC and HSE.  The title of the Conference was Keeping Children Safe: Critical Times, Critical Issues.  This was the second such Conference and attracted a large attendance and also a fair amount of media coverage.   

A number of Continual Professional Development (CPD) workshops were also held;

• 25/5/09 “Fit between Family Therapy and Social Unit”
• 8/2/10   “Children’s Rights in Post Separation Conflict Situations”    
• 25/2/10  “Using Group work in Practice, in learning and teaching social work; an empowerment based approach”
• 1/3/10  “Irish Father’s Parenting Experiences with their Disabled Child”
• 23/3/10 to mark World Social Work Day a Seminar was held regarding the “Rights of the Child”       

Other areas looked at the monthly branch meetings included Supervision and also the issue of proportionate responsibility for Social Workers i.e. Social Workers carrying responsibility proportionate to their authority.