ALL Institute – Page 6

The All Institute through a Sustainable Lens: Celebrating the Ideas in ALL blog’s Second Anniversary

Symposium

left to right Hannah Casey, Lea Urzel Francil and Matthew McKenna — Hannah Casey, Léa Urzel Francil and Matthew McKenna

The ALL Institute celebrated its fifth anniversary at the end of November, which also coincided with the second anniversary of its blog – Ideas in ALL–. With this in mind, we, the blog’s editorial team, invited ALL members, as well as its collaborators and close stakeholders to engage with the topic of sustainability and contribute to a dedicated symposium.

Central to the work of ALL is the core ethos of a rights-based, person-centered approach to social inclusion and independent living. The theme of sustainability aligns itself closely with this underpinning vision. As such, the work of ALL comprises a vital nexus between academic research, civil society, lived experience, law and policy. Sustainability represents a core principle of the ALL Institute, and hence of the Ideas in ALL Blog.

Sustainability: What it means and how to practice it.

Sustainability: What it means and how to practice it. Author: Cassandra Murphy. Voiced by Anastasia Campbell

Our Journey to the End of the Night… and towards a new future. Happy Birthday Ideas in ALL!

Symposium

Picture of the three ALL Institute Co-Directors in front of a white back drop. From left to right: Deirdre Desmond, Mac MacLachlan, Delia Ferri — *Delia Ferri, Mac MacLachlan, Deirdre Desmond*

Ideas in ALL is two years old! Our blog was set up on 3 December 2020, amidst the Covid-19 pandemic. The blog seeks to engage an audience beyond academic journal readers – it aims to be relevant to a much wider range of stakeholders and to engage with public debate. A crucial element of the Assisting Living and Learning (ALL) Institute’s blog – Ideas in ALL is to empower and give voice to people with disabilities, mental health problems, or chronic illnesses and older people, and their many and varied experiences of positive ageing. We also want those often marginalized from the benefits of mainstream society to feel that they can share ideas here. We strive to ensure that Ideas in ALL is characterized by accessible style, pluralism, openness and appreciation of difference.

Sustainability: What it means and how to practice it.

Social Structures

Symposium

Click for the Audio Version

Author: Cassandra Murphy, PhD researcher in the Psychology Department of Maynooth University, funded by H2020 project GoGreenRoutes, Assisting Living and Learning Institute (ALL)

Cassandra Murphy

I often talk about sustainability in my work being in the realm of environmental psychology. My research explores the human-nature relationship, which inevitably links to pro-environmental behaviour. People often assume pro-environmental behaviour defines sustainability, but sustainability is much more than recycling and planting trees. Through my conversations I have learnt that the term ‘sustainability’ can be perceived differently. We constantly hear about sustainability, in the news, in our emails, in daily conversations; but what does this term really mean? Everyone’s understanding is individual to their lives and their experience. For some they instantly think of the UN Sustainable Development Goals whereas for others it can simply mean having the ability to keep up momentum of what they do each day and not burn themselves out. An all too familiar experience of many after the recent pandemic.

UN Sustainable Development Goals logo.

The most common definition of sustainability comes from the UN World Commission on Environment and Development which says sustainable development means “to ensure that it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” That’s exactly what it is. Ensuring that throughout our lifetimes we strive to create a world in which we do not take from the generations that come after us, but instead make sure they have what we have, if not better. The future generations should have equal access to the resources we have and be able to benefit from them no matter where they are, or how much money they earn. In a sense, this is the idea that we are leaving no one behind.

The Impact of the Welfare State on the Working Lives of Disabled Artists: A New Research Project in ALL

Social Structures

Author: Philip Finn, Assisting Living and Learning (ALL) Institute and Post-Doctoral Researcher; recipient of the Irish Research Council Enterprise Partnership Fellowship.

Philip Finn

Life as an artist is precarious, even more so for disabled artists. First, disabled people face higher risks of poverty, social exclusion, and discrimination in their working lives and in public services. Secondly, for many in the arts sector income is sporadic, producing an insecurity necessitating on interim reliance on welfare payments to get by. This is felt acutely by disabled artists, often accessing crucial welfare payments and supports, who receive lower incomes from artistic employment, funding and grants. My research focuses on the role of welfare state payments and wider supports in facilitating or impeding disabled artists’ working lives.

The right to participate in the cultural life of the community is enshrined in a number of international documents, for example the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 27) and the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (Article 15(1)(a)). In relation to the specific needs of people with disabilities Article 30 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities requires States to ‘enable persons with disabilities to have the opportunity to develop and utilize their creative, artistic and intellectual potential’. The Convention is central to elaborating a human rights model of disability underlining the recognition and participation of persons with disabilities in communal life. It necessitates accessibility as both consumers of culture as well as creators.

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.

World Mental Health Day: Reflections on Access to Nature and Mental Health

Social Lives

Author: Ellen Staeglin Tucker, 3rd year BSc psychology intern of Dr Tadhg MacIntyre at Maynooth University

Autumn School on Our Future in Forestry Sustainable Management, Biodiversity and benefits for health nordic irish collaborations and pathways to policy
10-12 October Maynooth University Glenroyal Hotel — Autumn School on Our Future in Forestry

World Mental Health Day takes place on the 10^th of October every year and has been running since 1992. The month of October is also World Mental Health Month. Every year a theme is highlighted around the topic of mental health today, as well as a general aim to spread awareness and gain support. The theme for 2022 is “Make mental health & well-being for all a global priority”. There are two important factors being highlighted this year; 1. the need for everyone, regardless of their circumstances, to have easy access to mental health services, and 2. the prioritisation of mental health and mental health services. For some, professional healthcare is vital to find ways of improvement and recovery, for a lot of people mental health services could go a long way in improving mental health. This is where a lot of the disparity in access lies. However, there are daily activities that nearly everyone can do at home to help improve their mental health.

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