Author: All Institute

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First Time Conference: DANCING to Italy

Stories/Lived Experiences

Author: Eva Krolla is a Research Assistant in the ERC-funded DANCING project at the School of Law and Criminology and Assisting Living and Learning (ALL) Institute, Maynooth University.

DANCING Project Team Maynooth (Left to Right) Ann Leahy, Eva Krolla, Iryna Tekuchova, Hilary Hooks, Delia Ferri and Lea Urzel
DANCING Project Team, Maynooth University

5.45 am, the alarm is ringing, as scheduled. A little early, even for people like me who like to think of themselves as ‘morning people’. And it is true, I have little difficultly getting up. But it is accompanied by a subtle nervousness – do I have everything? Did I pack everything we need, better double-check that the USB key works. Done! I quickly brew some coffee and take a deep breath. Phone, keys, passport, boarding pass, laptop, USB key (double-check that one) and hand luggage – got everything. As the taxi slowly approaches the front door, I quietly leave the apartment, barely 6.30 in the morning. Subtle nervousness turning into excitement… This is my first conference with the DANCING team!

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Access to Assistive Technology (AT); why we should not prioritise function over form and adopt a holistic approach

Social Lives

Author: Mohamed Maalim – PhD Researcher at the ALL Institute, Department of Psychology, Maynooth University, and Senior Occupational Therapist at Stewartscare

Mohamed Maalim
Mohamed Maalim

Persons with disabilities, people with functional limitations resulting from chronic conditions, and older adults often experience physical, psychological, and social challenges restricting their participation in society. Moreover, individuals with disabilities often experience direct and indirect societal discrimination, as mentioned in the report Disability and Discrimination in Ireland. The right of the person with disabilities to the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms, as well as to the protection and promotion of their inherent dignity and respect, is enshrined in Article 1 (Purpose) of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD)

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Walk Me Back: Reminiscence and Physical Activity for Better Memory

Social Lives

Authors: Cassandra Dinius, Carmen Pocknell, Richard Roche, Department of Psychology & Assisting Living and Learning (ALL) Institute, Maynooth University

Left to Right Carmen Pocknell, Richard Roche, Cassandra Dinius
L to R Carmen Pocknell, Richard Roche, Cassandra Dinius

Remember those life moments that you think are unforgettable and yet, are already blurred one year later. Our precious memories are fragile and can evaporate as rapidly as a blink of an eye. Memory loss has taken so many dreams away.

Keeping our brains active – especially our memories – can be life changing, and is comparable to revisiting our favourite, faded old book: by reading it again and again, we keep the moments alive…

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Bringing the Conversation on Digital Accessibility into the Mainstream

Social Lives

Author: Emma Smith, Assisting Living and Learning (ALL) Institute Member and Post-Doctoral Researcher; recipient of the prestigious Marie Sklowdowska Curie Actions Individual Fellowship

Emma Smith Profile Pic
Emma Smith

Our lives are increasingly digital. From the moment we wake up in the morning, to before we go to bed, we are connected. A recent report from the BBC suggests people are spending, on average, a third of their waking hours on mobile apps.  Even in lower income contexts, 30-50% of people have been reported to be connected to mobile ‘smart’ devices. Those of us living in higher income contexts, like Ireland, are also connected in other ways – through smart watches and health tracking devices like the Oura ring, smart homes, our cars, and of course our computers. The reality is that it is becoming more and more difficult to escape a digital world.

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Will you be RADICAL?

 A call to Action for Revision of the Disability Act 2005

Social Structures

Authors: Mac MacLachlan, Delia Ferri, Delma Byrne and Anastasia Campbell – Assisting Living and Learning (ALL) Institute, Maynooth University

Black Background. White font large letters ‘Have your Say’ underneath subheading ‘Be RADICAL’ underneath text reads ‘Revision of the Act on Disability in Ireland through Collaborative Action for new Legislation’, the R, A, D, I, C, A, and L are bolded and underlined.
Be RADICAL: Revision of the Act on Disability in Ireland through Collaborative Action for new Legislation

By asking you to be RADICAL we are asking you to join us in calling for the Revision of the Act on Disability in Ireland through Collaborative Action for new Legislation.

We want to harness both new thinking and dissatisfaction concerning the Disability Act (2005), by constructively focusing on ideas for why and how the Act should and could be improved, now!  

Our aim is to encourage legislators, and particularly the Minister for Disability, Anne Rabbitte, to begin the long-overdue process of legislative reform in disability.  This year revision of the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs, (EPSEN) Act (2004), was announced. Revision of EPSEN, without revision of its ‘sister Act’, the Disability Act (2005), with which it is closely intertwined, makes little sense.  Furthermore, both of these acts predate the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability (CRPD) which, since our ratification in 2018 (we were the last country in  Europe to ratify it), means that we are now obliged to comply with and deliver on the Convention. 

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ALL and the Dept. of Adult and Community Education Addiction/Psychology Seminar Growing Space: Recovery, Education and Capability

Stories/Lived Experiences

Author: Deirdre Delaney, accredited psychotherapist (M.I.A.H.I.P, MCPI) and a tutor with the department of adult and community education in Maynooth University.

Deirdre Delaney Profile Picture
Deirdre Delaney

The Adult Education programme run by Maynooth University reaches all parts of Ireland. Every year our Addiction and Psychology certificate and diploma programmes gather from all around the country to share a day of presentations and workshops on the Maynooth campus. It is a very important day in our academic calendar but of course over the last two years we were unable to gather. Though an online day was organised, the pandemic never felt more real. Students and tutors alike missed the opportunity to be together with others on campus. For many students it will be their first time to set foot on a university campus. I always hope that it won’t be their last time.  

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“Human rights crisis within a crisis” – Intersectional challenges for persons with disabilities in the war in Ukraine

Social Structures

Author: Rebecca Daniel – PHD Student, Assisting Living and Learning (ALL) Institute, Department of Psychology, Maynooth University

Rebecca Daniel
Rebecca Daniel

The situation of persons with disabilities during the current war in Ukraine has been repeatedly described as a “crisis within a crisis” during the past number of months. This blog post aims to reflect on the multiple forms of discrimination that persons with disabilities face in times of conflict.

Approximately 15% of the worldwide population has a disability. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimated that 13% of people in Ukraine, in need of humanitarian assistance in 2021, had a disability. In situations of war and conflict, these numbers can even increase, since many disabilities are caused or worsened by war (e.g. through war injuries, a lack of health care provisions, or post-traumatic stress disorders). Given this, it can be estimated that the numbers of persons with disabilities directly or indirectly affected by the war in Ukraine are even higher than those estimated above.

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Platforms under control? An expert opinion on the copyright aspects of the Digital Services Act

Social Structures

Author: Péter Mezei, Associate Professor of Law, University of Szeged, Faculty of Law and Political Sciences; adjunct professor (dosentti), University of Turku, Faculty of Law

Péter Mezei Profile Picture
Péter Mezei

Most of the European Union (EU) legislation on platforms was introduced in a period that we currently call “web 1.0”. During the early years of the internet, websites offered “read only” experience, rather than interactivity and user engagement. The early legislative acts in the USA and the EU have contributed to the emergence of brand-new business models. The platformisation – based on the safe harbours granted for (certain) service providers – has generated a brand new (“read/write”) internet culture, something we refer to as “web 2.0”. For a while, social media’s contribution to modern society was hailed as the new democratisation of life, but those sentiments have since then gone, partially due to platforms’ excessive content moderation practices.

Web 2.0 – coupled with rogue websites’ contribution to illegal end-user activities – have sparked criticism on a global scale. It took many years in Europe to come up with the necessary solutions to mitigate the negative consequences of the platform age. One of the magic keywords for these reforms was the so-called “value gap”, that is, the claim that platforms’ benefits from end-users’ activities is disproportionately greater than the fees they pay to rights holders. Furthermore, as data has become the “oil of our age”, an urgent need has arisen to regulate the collection, management and utility of information.

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How We Can Improve Digital Health Technology for Older Adults: Inclusive Processes and Measuring Meaningful Outcomes

Social Technologies

Author: Dr Richard Vance, Post-Doctoral Researcher, Department of Psychology and Assisting Living & Learning (ALL) Institute, Maynooth University

Dr Richard Vance
Dr Richard Vance

“I fear the day when technology overlaps our humanity” goes a quote, which is dubiously attributed to Albert Einstein on the internet—sometimes you can trust technology, sometimes you can’t.

Last week was Social Justice Week in Maynooth, and it’s as good a time as any to reflect on whether we’re making a positive difference to the lives of others and the world around us. I want to look at how we’re approaching the design and provision of digital health technologies for older adults to promote health and well-being and reduce inequality.

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Maynooth University’s Social Justice Week: Reflections on the Intersections between the DANCING project and the SDGs

Social Lives

Author: Léa Urzel, PhD Researcher ERC Project DANCING, Assisting Living and Learning (ALL) Institute, Department of Law, Maynooth University

DANCING Logo

The Social Justice Week is currently taking place at Maynooth University. Thanks to the collaboration of staff, students and other agencies, an array of events has been organised to promote social justice and human rights. This year’s edition is dedicated to the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Adopted in 2015, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development established ‘an action plan for people, planet and prosperity’ and introduced 17 SDGs to guide decisions of a wide range of stakeholders at State, regional and global level. Under this UN initiative, world leaders have committed to taking joint action to achieve the SDGs and the 169 associated targets over the next 15 years. Integrated and indivisible, the SDGs and its related targets address global challenges ranging from poverty, health, education, gender equality to clean water, sanitation, or climate action.

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Judicial Review of Assessment of Need

Social Structures

Author: Mac MacLachlan, Co-Director of the Assisting Living and Learning (ALL) Institute, Professor of Psychology & Social Inclusion, Maynooth University and Clinical Lead for Disability Services, Irish Health Service (HSE)

Professor Mac MacLachlan Profile Picture
Mac MacLachlan

On the 11th March 2022, Justice Siobhan Phelan’s Judicial Review , was released which sought to address the grievances in two particular cases, and to interpret the intensions of the Disability Act (2005) regarding the Assessment of Need (AoN) process. I can make no comment on the particular cases, but I would rather comment on the broader issues touched upon in the decision and on Justice Phelan’s interpretation of the AoN process, while well intentioned and carefully considered, seems to me very problematic. While she refers to a related 2019 report from the ALL Institute on a closely related topic, the judgement will not help us address the challenges, which are certainly not unique to the Irish context.

The Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for the AoN was introduced to have a standardised and shorter assessment time, allowing for services that assist children and parents to be provided more quickly.  It allowed for assessment continuing as part of routine clinical practice alongside services such as therapy, recognising that assessment is not a one-off event, and that people’s needs change over time.  The SOP also allowed for the situation where, should a preliminary assessment not be sufficient to identify the need for services, then a more detailed assessment would follow. This is a pragmatic approach, to maximise the impact of available resources, as the Health Service Executive (HSE) is compelled to do under section 7 of the Health Act (2004): resources should be used in the “most beneficial, effective and efficient manner”. 

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Learning as a Lifelong Process

Social Lives

Author: Dr. Katja Seidel, Senior Post-Doc Researcher in SHAPES (Horizon 2020); Department of Anthropology and Assisting Living & Learning (ALL) Institute at Maynooth University

Katja Seidel
Katja Seidel

We all learn. Every day we live we experience something new, acquire novel skills or engage with a new person or activity for the first time. Learning thus never ends, not even when we leave formal educational pathways or retire. The Horizon 2020 Innovation Action research project SHAPES (Smart and Healthy Ageing through People Engaging in Supportive Systems) led by Maynooth University and ALL Institute members, starts from the assumption that people of all ages are capable of learning and integrating new tools and behaviours into their lives, especially when assisted in an appropriate manner. This four-year research project looks at ways in which integrated care and governance models as well as smart technologies can support community dwelling older adults to live healthy and active lives, and investigates different pathways for change and innovation that will have a beneficial impact on our societies in Europe.

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Never-ending One Day War

Stories/Lived Experiences

Author: Iryna Tekuchova, PhD Researcher, Department of Law, Maynooth University.

Iryna Tekuchova

February 24th, I woke at 7am in rainy Ireland. It had to be a busy day: reading, researching, editing. I made myself a cup of coffee and turned off the “airplane mode” on my phone. Five missed calls from my mother, seven – from my sister, and twenty-five unread messages from my friends popped up on my screen. I did not even need to read them to understand what it was about.

Russia attacked Ukraine. The war has begun.

I will never use the “airplane mode” on my phone again.

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Gender-based Violence and Disabled Women: Let’s Talk

Social Lives

Author: Eliona Gjecaj is an early-stage researcher in the DARE project (Disability Advocacy Research Europe) based at the University of Iceland. Her PhD research focuses on ‘Violence against Disabled Women: Access to Justice’ in Iceland and the UK.

Eliona Gjecaj
Eliona Gjecaj

Today, on International Women’s Day, I would like to celebrate all the survivors of gender-based violence, especially disabled women, and encourage others to come forward and tell someone. Gender-based violence is not and should not be taboo. Much like the saying ‘talk the talk, walk the walk’, we must have the experience talk. We must access the justice walk.

Let’s first  highlight that there are so many unheard experiences of gender-based violence of disabled women that we need to hear, to believe, to recognise as breaches of law, and thus, provide support and access to reporting and prosecuting such violence. Lack of disability-rights-based knowledge, awareness, and training should not be the defence, but rather acknowledged and addressed. Not just in Ireland, but in many countries across Europe.

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The impact of Covid-19 on women in academia: A step backwards for gender equality?

Social Lives

Author: Dr Rebecca Maguire, Department of Psychology, Maynooth University

Rebecca Maguire
Rebecca Maguire

International Women’s Day is a great time to celebrate the numerous achievements of women across the world. However, it is also an important time to reflect on the struggles and inequalities that persist for many. Unfortunately, despite significant strides towards gender* equality in recent years, as a group, women remain disadvantaged in the world of work relative to their male counterparts. This includes the oft-cited gender pay gap – the difference in median earnings between men and women – that persists in many sectors. Academia is no exception to this, with a recent report from the HEA showing that, in 2020, men made up 73% of Professors in Ireland, compared to women who made up just 27%. This is despite the fact that women make up a greater proportion of early career researchers and lecturers in academia – an effect often referred to as the “leaky pipeline”.

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Open Science – what is it and can we teach it?

Social Lives

Author: Dr Nicola Mountford, Assistant Professor, School of Business, Maynooth University

Nicola Mountford
Nicola Mountford

Opening Doors is a collaborative, interdisciplinary, intersectoral and international learning experience for early career researchers in Open Science and Open Innovation – applicable to all academic disciplines.  As the project to develop and pilot this learning experience draws to a close, I reflect on my own learning experience as one of the principal investigators within the consortium.

Opening Doors, is an EU-funded co-ordination action aimed to research and develop a learning experience and networking opportunity for early career researchers using open, online resources. Specifically, our proposal said that we would focus on open science and open innovation. The first time our consortium met – Maynooth University (MU), Aarhus University (Denmark), the National Training Fund (Czech Republic), and UCD (Lead) – we spent a surprising amount of time discussing what open science and open innovation meant to the various partners. Coming from the School of Business, I had a good sense of what was meant by open innovation – as Chesbrough put it, “a more distributed, more participatory, more decentralized approach to innovation”. When it came to defining open science, however, I struggled. Following the definition of open innovation, open science presumably indicated a more distributed, more participatory, more decentralized approach to science. But, when we speak of open innovation, we tend to see industry-based innovators reaching into academia and across the general public. Open science seemed to require that we academics return the favour.

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The Tragic Age: Life without a PA

Stories/Lived Experiences

Author: Ross Coleman is a Translator, Writer and Disability Rights Activist from Dublin

Ross Coleman Profile Picture
Ross Coleman

“Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically”, thus opens D.H Lawrence’s famous novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover, published in 1928 in which a bored unfulfilled housewife embarks on an affair with the gardener on her husband’s estate. Clifford Chatterley, Lawrence informs us, is a cripple, badly injured from serving in the front. Since his injury, he has become cold and unfeeling, absorbed in books and his intellect, only going outside to toot along in his electric bathchair. When I first read the book a few years ago, I dismissed it as a bygone relic of an ableist age. And yet, despite that, I was forced to admit a single harrowing fact: nothing has really changed.

I require a Personal Assistant (hereafter referred to as a PA) in order to help with daily tasks that I cannot do myself: getting dressed, going to the bathroom, showering. At the moment, my parents provide this support and have been providing it since I was born.  If I want to go out, I either have to go out with my parents or just not go to the bathroom. Neither of these are desirable solutions. I should not expect, neither do I want, my parents to accompany me to every social function, but nor can I just not go to the bathroom.

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The future of work and disability: learning our way forward

Social Lives

Author: Joan O’Donnell, Doctoral researcher with the Assisting Living and Learning (ALL) Institute, funded by ADVANCE CRT and the SFI. She lectures in the MSc programme in Systems Thinking In Practice with the Open University and is the author of the Employers for Change report referred to in this blog.

Joan O Donnell Profile Picture
Joan O Donnell

Continuous advances in technology and Assistive Technology (AT) enhance the range of work that people can do outside the office environment, making working-from-home (WFH), hybrid or remote working a realistic option for many workers with disabilities.  It may suit those seeking greater flexibility in their working day, allow for better management of disabling conditions at home or sidestep the need to negotiate public transport.

Disability and work poses a complex issue that persists despite broad recognition of the interrelationship between disability, poverty, education, housing in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) Article 27, which commits to safeguarding and promoting the right for disabled people to work on par with others. While  the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) suggests there is a greater need to engage employers to build a better world of work for persons with disabilities, the ESRI finds that  there is also a need to understand the experience of disabled people in work.

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Women & Girls in STEM: We Need a New Pipeline!

Social Lives

Authors: Dr Katriona O’Sullivan, Digital Skills Lecturer, ALL Institute, Maynooth University. Dr Serena Clarke, Post-Doctoral Researcher, ALL Institute, Maynooth University. Dr Holly Foley, Programme Manager, STEM Passport for Inclusion, ALL Institute Maynooth University.

Girls studying Science a group of girls studying science and using technology
Pictures from STEM Passport for Inclusion | Maynooth University Lab Days

 When thinking about women’s participation in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM), we often use the leaky pipeline as an analogy. There are specific places where women ‘leak’ out. For example, in school, young girls who show an early interest in science careers have often changed their minds by the time they reach secondary school due to a lack of STEM subjects and STEM supports being offered to them.  In college women who opt for STEM often change their minds before graduation. Those who do graduate with a STEM degree often leak out of the pipeline after graduation -opting for careers that are suitable to their family life. While others hit the glass ceiling when trying to progress into STEM leadership roles. In all cases, we see that women leak out of the STEM pipeline more than men do (Clark Blickenstaff, 2005). When considering the pipeline analogy, it is about time that we admitted as a society, especially on a day like today –International Women and Girl in STEM Day– that the STEM pipeline is well and truly broken– in fact, we need a whole new plumbing system… and we could probably do with a group of female scientists and engineers on hand to make sure it doesn’t break again.

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The European Declaration on Digital Rights and Principles: a proposed Guide for the Digital Transformation

Social Structures

Authors: Léa Urzel, PhD Researcher ERC Project DANCING, Assisting Living and Learning (ALL) Institute, Department of Law, Maynooth University and Matthew McKenna, PhD Researcher at Maynooth University’s ALL Institute, Research Funded through the Science Foundation of Ireland (SFI) Centre for Research Training in Advanced Networks for Sustainable Societies (ADVANCE CRT)

Léa Urzel (Left) and Matthew McKenna (Right) profile pictures with a black boarder
Léa Urzel & Matthew McKenna

Last Wednesday, 26 January 2022, the European Commission (the Commission) released a draft Declaration on Digital Rights and Principles for the Digital Decade (the Declaration) for the European Parliament and Council to discuss and eventually endorse. With this initiative, the Commission aims to provide a reference point for all involved in the European Union’s (EU) digital transformation and to guide policy makers as well as private actors working with new technologies.

Last week’s Declaration responds to calls from the Parliament to ensure strong consumer protection and the respect of fundamental rights and principles (e.g. non-discrimination, data protection, net neutrality) in approaching the EU’s digital transformation. It further builds on previous Council initiatives, including the Tallinn Declaration on eGovernment, the Berlin Declaration on Digital Society and Value-Based Digital Government, and the Lisbon Declaration – Digital Democracy with a Purpose. The draft Declaration also follows various Commission initiatives introduced in 2021 such as the Commission’s Communication on the Digital Compass: the European way for the Digital Decade presented last March. It sets out its ‘vision, targets and avenues for a successful digital transformation of Europe in 2030’. In addition, the Commission proposed in September 2021, the Path to the Digital Decade, a governance framework to deliver the Digital Decade’s targets.

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