Stories/ Lived Experience – Page 2

Blog 2: Getting to the heart of designing research using systems thinking

Stories/Lived Experience

Authors: Bob Williams, Systems Thinking Practitioner, Trainer and Evaluator – Consultant. Joan O’Donnell, Systems Thinking Trainer and PhD Researcher at Maynooth University’s Assisting Living and Learning Institute, Research Funded through the Science Foundation of Ireland (SFI) Centre for Research Training in Advanced Networks for Sustainable Societies (ADVANCE CRT)

Joan O Donnell & Bob Williams

In this blog, we will discuss topics covered during ADVANCE CRT’s Summer School on Systems Thinking at Maynooth University in June 2022. See here for the first blog. It can be read as a discourse around designing research, and you are invited to consider how the questions posed offer an inflection point for your research.

Nobody would deny that research is a complex business. One of the most complex decisions is deciding the focus of your research among the vast range of possibilities that lie within its scope. This blog explores how understanding and addressing three different kinds of complexity can help with that tricky decision. Ontological complexity helps you address the reality you are dealing with; cognitive complexity helps you understand how different people make sense of that reality and praxis complexity helps you decide which parts of ontological and cognitive complexities ought to be inside and outside of your focus.

Blog 1: A feast of new ideas: Systems Thinking in research

Stories/Lived Experiences

Authors: Joan O’Donnell, Systems Thinking Trainer and PhD Researcher at Maynooth University’s Assisting Living and Learning (ALL) Institute, research funded through the Science Foundation of Ireland (SFI) Centre for Research Training in Advanced Networks for Sustainable Societies (ADVANCE CRT) and Bob Williams, Systems Thinking Practitioner, Trainer and Evaluator – Consultant

A picture of Joan O'Donnell, wearing green, smiling, in the brightly lit conference room with a closed bar counter in the background with shutters down, at the Glenroyal Hotel Maynooth. — Joan O Donnell

This blog is the first of a series of blogpost contributions outlining basic Systems Thinking concepts presented at the ADVANCE CRT Summer School that we helped to design in June 2022, held in Maynooth.

‘The Systems Thinking summer school opened up little doors in my mind to paths that had been unexplored previously. It’s like an added tool to my repertoire and if I get back into old ways of thinking and get stuck, I remind myself of that door. It makes exploring topics more exciting also because it’s more of an adventure with this way of thinking’. Ashley Sheil, PhD Scholar, Maynooth University.

The ADVANCE CRT Summer School focusing on Systems Thinking marked the largest and most ambitious event of the Science Foundation of Ireland PhD programme to date. It brought over 60 students and supervisors together for four days in a memorable event that was as much a celebration of being together in physical space as an opportunity to delve deeply into the richness that Systems Thinking offers research.

This introductory blog gives an overview of Systems Thinking and a sense of its importance for transdisciplinary research. It also outlines some of the topics that students experienced during that week.

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!

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

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.

Never-ending One Day War

Stories/Lived Experiences

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

Iryna Tekuchova

February 24^th, 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.

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

“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.

December 3rd 2021, UN International Day of Persons with Disabilities: Fighting for Rights in the Post – COVID Era

Audio Version

December 3rd 2021, UN International Day of Persons with Disabilities: Fighting for Rights in the Post – COVID Era. Author: James Cawley, Policy Officer, Independent Living Movement Ireland (ILMI). Voiced by Anastasia Campbell

December 3rd 2021, UN International Day of Persons with Disabilities: Fighting for Rights in the Post – COVID Era

Stories/Lived Experiences

Symposium

Click here for Audio Version

Author: James Cawley, Policy Officer, Independent Living Movement Ireland (ILMI)

First of all, a big thank you to the “ALL Blog” for asking me back to contribute for the International Day of Persons with Disabilities. It has been an extremely busy year, (all online), with working from home and receiving endless updates on the Covid-19 pandemic. December 3^rd is the UN International Day of Persons with Disabilities, and I sit here with straw and a mug of tea in hand, writing this blog one year since it started!

I’m a very proud Irish disabled man who is a son, brother, husband, friend and co – worker. I also work as a Policy Officer for Independent Living Movement Ireland (ILMI).

We are a campaigning, ‘national cross-impairment disabled person’s organisation’ or ‘DPO’ as defined under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).

Assistive Technology & Beyond: Benefits of Technology Supports for All Students in Higher Education

Stories/Lived Experiences

Author: Dr Ruchi Palan, Assistive Technology Specialist, Maynooth Access Programme (MAP), Maynooth University

Birdseye image of table with 5 laptops various handheld devices and headsets. People appear to be working and there is tea on the table also. — Photo by Marvin Meyer on Unsplash

Technology advancement and innovation have reduced inequities in access to, and facilitated greater participation in, education for students with disabilities. In particular, assistive technology (AT) can significantly improve the overall educational experience of students with disabilities. Research has found a positive link between AT use and education and psychosocial benefits such as academic self-efficacy, increased well-being, adaptability, self-esteem, and competence. Hence, AT is not only an enabler but also serves to empower students with disabilities.

However, AT that is commonly associated as a support for students with disabilities can also benefit those without disabilities. At the same time, with advances in technology, mainstream technologies now offer many assistive features. There is arguably a shift in perception of what constitutes AT and who can benefit from it.

Disability, Identity, Neurodiversity & Me: Or should “Me” be first?

Stories/Lived Experience

Author: Mac MacLachlan, Assisting Living and Learning (ALL) Institute, Maynooth University

Mac MacLachlan

Different models of disability understand disability in different ways. The medical model associates disability with illness, deficit or disorder; and with the limitations these impose on individuals. The social model sees disability, not as a personal attribute but as the experience people have of barriers to their participation in society. The human rights model recognises both social barriers to participation and personal experience (for instance chronic pain) independent of barriers; and it asserts people’s rights to overcome barriers and access services to fulfil their right to fully participate in society. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD, 2006) embraces the social- and human rights-based models and obliges States that have ratified it – Ireland did in 2018 – to provide the necessary services and supports for its implementation.

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