Doctoral Fellows

Ph.D. Topic: An Investigation of a Rights-Based Approach to Social Supports for Children and Young People with an Intellectual Disability in Ireland

The study seeks to develop a rights-based policy instrument for the enhancement of an integrated system of rights-based social supports for children and young people with an intellectual disability in Ireland. 

Ph.D. Topic: The Extent to Which Residential Care Practice Promotes Protective Resilience Factors for Young People in Care and as a Coping Mechanism for Those Who Have Left Care.

“For many young people the outcomes of life in the care system may not be positive”. The reasons for their admission into care may not have been resolved and young people may have acquired additional problems as a result of being in care. Consequently, their care experience may not facilitate the development of strengths, resources and coping strategies for life after care.

Ph.D. Topic: Exploratory Study of Relationships between Parents and Providers of Childcare Services in Ireland

This research seeks to explore the complex and intertwined relationships between parents and child care providers that often exist on the ‘threshold’ between the community at large and the ‘cloistered’ hidden realm of the childcare environment, in its many forms.

Ph.D. Topic: Advocating and Setting Agendas: An Exploratory Study of NGO Advocacy Surrounding the Reception Conditions of Asylum Seeking Children and Families in Ireland and its Influence on Agenda Setting.

Ph.D. Topic: Zambian Perspectives: A Participatory Contextualisation of Youth Civic Engagement (YCE) from both Youth and Adult Zambian Perspectives (completed in December 2012)

Summary of thesis

Ph.D. Topic: How do children in Ireland experience and cope with the process of their parents’ separation and divorce and subsequent changed family life?

Ph.D. Topic: Assessing Leadership in Interagency Work for Children

Increasingly, policy makers and service managers, planners and practitioners are encouraged, and often mandated, to work together to achieve better outcomes for children and young people (CFRC/CAWT, 2008). While interagency collaboration has its challenges, leadership is a critical factor in terms of engaging partnership members, and has a great impact on the developmental trajectory of interagency groups (Horwath and Morrison, 2007).

Ph.D. Topic: An Explorative Study on the Connection between Leadership Skills, Resilience and Social Support among Youth (completed in December 2012)

Youth leadership has received growing attention both nationally and internationally as a way of preparing young people to contribute meaningfully to society. Similarly, concepts of resilience and social support have gained increasing interest as mechanisms of enabling youth cope with adversity and deal with challenges of everyday life.