Ms Mairead Barry

Undergraduate

Since 2003, she has taught on the Bachelor of Business in Recreation & Sport Management, the BA in Exercise and Health Studies and on the IUHPE Accredited programme, the BSc Public Health and Health Promotion / BA in Health Promotion. This programme is an an IUHPE Accredited Health Promotion Course which is an internationally recognised qualification with the course content informed by the agreed IUHPE (International Union of Health Promotion and Education) competencies and professional standards for Health Promotion. This means that students who graduate from this course are automatically eligible to apply to become an IUHPE Registered Health Promotion Practitioner on the voluntary register.  Areas of teaching involve:

Social Personal and Health Education / Life Skills / Experiential Groupwork / Facilitation Skills

Promoting Health with Key Populations - Children, Youth at Risk.

Active Citizenship.

Lifestyle and Health. 

Health Promotion Leadership.

Research and Learning. 

Final year project supervision.

Supporting the Peer to Peer Mentoring Programme and facilitating students within the Department of Sport and Exercise Science to complete their Senior Mentor Award. 

Postgraduate

She is co-course learder on the MA in Advanced Facilitation Skills for Health and Well Being. This programme is an an IUHPE Accredited Health Promotion Course which is an internationally recognised qualification with the course content informed by the agreed IUHPE (International Union of Health Promotion and Education) competencies and professional standards for Health Promotion. This means that students who graduate from this course are automatically eligible to apply to become an IUHPE Registered Health Promotion Practitioner on the voluntary register. Areas of teaching involve:

Group Development and Workshop Design. 

Advanced Facilitation Skills.

Personal Development.

Research postgraduate supervision on the MA in in Advanced Facilitation Skills for Health and Well Being.

She is a member of the Centre for Health Behaviour Research Group and her areas of research are facilitation for health and well being, social personal and health education and community based health initiatives: 

2013 – 2017: Research and training projects with HSE and NYCI. 

She co-facilitated a National Training Programme in "Facilitation Skills for Delivering Experiential Learning for Healthy Living" for trainers who train teachers and workers in and out of school settings SPHE. This training was co-funded by the HSE and National Office for Suicide Prevention and is delieverd by WIT and the Mens Development Network. 

She was involved in a project that is "Experiential Based Faciltiation training for Health and Wellbeing" Training Programme for workers in the Youth Sector. This project is in partnership with The National Youth Council of Ireland and is co-funded by the HSE and National Office for Suicide Prevention. For this project, she co-supervised on a reserch project that was titled "An exploration of the sustainability of facilitation skills for health and well-being training in the out of school sector".

2018 evaluated an Early Years Initiative run by Waterford Childcare Committee. This initative  was called "#kindwaterford Early Years Initiative: Kindness through Collaboration and Participation".  

2018 – 2020: Collaborating with Waterford Social Prescribing Service as a Researcher by conducting an evaluation of the Social Prescribing Service in Waterford Metropolitan Area over the course of 2019.

Published Abstracts/Conference Proceedings: Peer Reviewed

Carroll P., Early J., Murphy N.M., O’Connor J., Barry M., Eagan-Torkko M., O’Connor R., Richardson N., Stone A. (2022). Strengthening Health Promotion Pedagogy through Global Learning: Development of the Transnational Education and Community Health Collaboratory (TEACH CoLab). Pedagogy in Health Promotion (in press)

Carroll P, Barry M, Harold L, O'Grady M, Barry Murphy B, O'Neill A, Brennan L; An investigation of the impact of ‘Facilitation Skills for Health and Well-Being’ training: Paula Carroll, European Journal of Public Health, Volume 27, Issue suppl_3, 1 November 2017, DOI:

Loughnane M., Murphy N., Donnelly R., Barrett E., Barry D., Jakeman P.M., Carroll P. (2003) Acute effects of anaerobic and aerobic exercise on bone turnover in healthy postmenopausal women.  Published in the proceedings of the 9th meeting of the National Osteoporosis Society, Bath, UK.  P27

Carroll P., Murphy N., Donnelly R., Barry D., Barrett E., Jakeman P.M.  Loughnane M. (2003) Acute effects of anaerobic exercise on bone turnover in healthy postmenopausal women.  National Institute of Health Sciences, Research Bulletin 1:5, 43-44

Carroll P., Hunter A., Barry D., Barrett  E., Loughnane M., Donnelly R., Murphy N., Jakeman P.M. (2002).  The components of variance and the critical difference in specific markers of bone turnover in healthy adult males and postmenopausal women.  National Institute of Health Sciences, Research Bulletin, 1: 4, 44-45

Carroll P., Jakeman P.M., Barrett E, Murphy N., Donnelly R., Loughnane M., Murphy M (2002) Biological Day-to-Day Variability and Critical Differences in the Serial Measurement of Two Biochemical Markers of Bone Turnover in the Sera of Healthy Young Adult Males.  National Institute of Health Sciences, Research Bulletin, 1: 3, 41-42 

Carroll P., Barrett E., Murphy N., Donnelly R., Loughnane M., Jakeman P.M., (2001) The optimum marker of bone resorption for both healthy young males and non-osteoporotic postmenopausal women: Sample collection, mode of assessment and inherent variability.  National Institute of Health Sciences, Research Bulletin, 1: 2, 41-42 

Presentations

Barry, M, (2019). An evaluation of the Social Prescribing Service in Waterford Metropolitan Area in the South East of Ireland. 2nd International Social Prescribing Network Conference at University of Westminster: 'From system to local'. London, United Kingdom. July 2019 [Oral]

Barry, M, (2019). Panelist (evaluation) on the Panel of Experience. 2nd National Social Prescribing Conference: Advancing Social Prescribing in Ireland, North and South. Waterford Social Prescribing Service and Social Prescribing Network, Ireland. Waterford, Ireland, November 2019

Carroll P. & Barry M. (2019) Cultivating resilience among staff in the educational setting: a personal development approach.  Annual Health Promotion Conference, Building a Healthy Ireland:  Promoting Health and Well Being in Education Settings, NUI Galway, June 2019.  Available at:  https://the-space-inbetween.org/2019/06/12/cultivating-resilience-among-staff-in-the-educational-setting-a-personal-development-approach

Lindy, D., Barry, M., (2018), #Kindwaterford – kindness through collaboration and participation.  WHO International Healthy Cities Conference Changing cities to change the world Celebrating thirty years of the Healthy Cities Movement Belfast, Northern Ireland, 1-4 October 2018 [Oral]

Carroll P, Barry M, Harold L, O'Grady M, Barry-Murphy B, O'Neill A, Brennan L; An investigation of the impact of ‘Facilitation Skills for Health and Well-Being’ training. 10th European Public Health Conference Sustaining resilient and healthy communities Stockholm, Sweden November 2017 [Oral]

Carroll P, Barry M, Harold L, O'Grady M, Barry-Murphy B, O'Neill A, Brennan L “...this is not about changing my work load or content, it is about changing how I do my work”: The personal and professional impact of facilitation skills for health and wellbeing training on youth workers in out of school settings. 21st Annual Health Promotion Conference at NUI Galway June 2017 [Oral]

Harold L, Carroll P, O’Grady M, Barry-Murphy N, Brennan L, O’Neill A, Barry M, An Exploration of the sustainability of facilitation skills for health and well-being training in the out of school sector. 20th Annual Health Promotion Conference at NUI Galway June 2016 [Oral]

Barry, M., Carroll, P., Barry Murphy, B., Brennan, L., Trainers Programme in Experiential Based Facilitation Training for Social Personal and Health Education (SPHE), SPHE Network Conference, Dublin.  Oct 2014 [oral]

Barry, M., Summary of practice-based experience of delivering SPHE in the Department of Health Sport and Exercise Science, WIT, 4th Schools for Health Europe International Summer School. Limerick June 2014 [Oral]

Carroll P. , Fanning O. , Barry-Murphy B. , Loughnane M. Family Communications and Self Esteem (FCSE): An experientially facilitated parenting programme, Health Promotion Summer School. Galway June 2014 [Poster]

Carroll P., Jakeman P.M., Barrett E, Murphy N., Donnelly R., Loughnane M., Murphy M. Biological Day-to-Day Variability and Critical Differences in the Serial Measurement of Two Biochemical Markers of Bone Turnover in the Sera of Healthy Young Adult Males.  28th Annual Scientific Conference of the Association of Clinical Biochemists in Ireland, Limerick, October 2005 [Poster]

Carroll P., Hunter A., Barry D., Barrett  E., Loughnane M., Donnelly R., Murphy N., Jakeman P.M. The components of variance and the critical difference in specific markers of bone turnover in healthy adult males and postmenopausal women.  28th Annual Scientific Conference of the Association of Clinical Biochemists in Ireland, Limerick, October 2005 [Poster]

Carroll P., Murphy N., Donnelly R., Barry D., Barrett E., Jakeman P.M.  Loughnane M.  Acute effects of anaerobic exercise on bone turnover in healthy postmenopausal women.  28th Annual Scientific Conference of the Association of Clinical Biochemists in Ireland, Limerick, October 2005 [Poster]

Loughnane M., Murphy N., Donnelly R., Barrett E., Barry D., Jakeman P.M., Carroll P. Acute effects of anaerobic and aerobic exercise on bone turnover in healthy postmenopausal women.  9th Meeting of the National Osteoporosis Society, Bath, June 2003 [Poster]

Other Publications

Waterford Social Prescribing Service. (2020). A review of Waterford Social Prescribing Service (April 2018 to September 2019)

Loughnane, M., (2010), Evaluation: Sexual Health Programme, Squashy Couch Adolescent Youth Café

Waterford Sports Partnership, (2004), Physical Activity in the Workplace: A guide to promoting physical activity in the Workplace, Prepared by Mairead Loughnane on behalf of Waterford Sports Partnership, http://www.waterfordsportspartnership.ie/pdfs/workplacebooklet.pdf

Mairead is a member of the Association of Health Promotion Ireland (AHPI) and in 2023 became the Chairperson of the AHPI Accreditation Board who are the National Accredition Organisation of Ireland for the Internationl Union for Health Promotion and Education. She previously held the role of Treasurer.  In 2018 she collaborated with the AHPI for WIT to host a CPD Workshop “Leadership in influencing the Health and Wellbeing Agenda’.

She is a pre-accredited member of the Irish Association of Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. She completed her practical training as a Psychotherapist with the community-based mental health services MyMind and is now a volunteering pre-accredited Psychotherapist with Youghal Cancer Support and St Brigids Family Community Centre. 

Partnership Work:

Mairead works at developing partnerships that are are mutually beneficial to the School of Health Science, the community partner and the students learning experience. Such partnerships are Squashy Couch Adolescent Health and Information Service, Students Union in WIT, SHINE Discovery, Waterford Schools Completion Programme with Access office in WIT.

She facilitated links between the Department and organisations for guest speaking, placement opportunities or community based research such as Waterford Area Partnership, Waterford Health Promotion Officer in the HSE, UCASADH Project, Men’s Development Network, St Brigid’s and Sacred Heart Family Resource Centres, Development Perspectives, One World Centre, Community Based Drugs Initiative, Grow Remote, Mens Sheds, Young Social Innovators, HSE, Inclusion.

2019: Member of Sexual Health Promotion Training Group (SHPTG) on designing a plan for the implementation of recommendations on professional training as laid out in The Irish National Sexual Health Strategy.

2016 – Present: Member of the “Facilitation for Health and Well Being Advisory Network” (WIT staff act as secretariat to network).  

2018 – Present Team member of Transnational Education and Collaboratory for Health (TeachCoLab) with University of Washington, Bothell.

• 2016 – 2021: Committee member of Healthy Waterford Steering Committee.
• 2017-2020: Founding member and chairperson of local womens jogging group called “Greenway Joggers” registered with Athletics Ireland.
• 2017-2019: Committee member of Waterford Age Friendly Alliance.
• 2009-2011: Volunteered as secretary on adult committee of Community run youth cafe in Kilmacthomas supported by Foroige. Lead author on funding/grant applications