A former board director of Ag Eisteacht, independent PR consultant Patsy Atkinson supports our strategic marketing goals by raising awareness of our work within our key target audiences. As well as managing our media relations campaigns, she works closely with our in-house marketing team to provide content for our website and social media channels, ensuring that our ethos and messages are reflected in everything we share. Patsy has over thirty years’ experience of working closely with clients in the UK and Ireland across a wide range of consumer, business-to-business and not-for-profit accounts. Relationships stand at the heart of her work. Patsy has a BA Degree in English Literature & Spanish from UCC and holds a post-graduate diploma in Media & Communications Skills from Carr Communications. She is a member of the Public Relations Institute of Ireland.

Dr Nicola O’ Sullivan supports our training and development and she provides a reflective space to our team and trainers. She holds a Professional Doctorate in Social Care and Emotional Wellbeing from the Tavistock and Portman Trust NHS, London, and has worked with children and families in community and residential settings in Ireland for nineteen years. She also provides clinical supervision to individual practitioners and teams working with children and families. Nicola is an associate lecturer at the Tavistock, she teaches on the Mental Health in the Community Certificate Course at UCC and is an external examiner for the TU in Dublin for the Social Care Degree Programme.

Dr Sinéad Hanafin is a nurse, midwife and public health nurse and has worked in practice, academia and in Government Departments. She is managing director of Research Matters, a research consultancy company that carries out policy research mainly on behalf of Government and Semi-State organisations. Sinéad has published nationally and internationally in the areas of children’s health and wellbeing, public health, community nursing and research methodology. In 2017 she was commissioned by Ag Eisteacht to undertake a research report, ‘Relationships Matter.’ Using a number of national data and research sources, she presented an overview of relationships in Ireland across the life cycle. Sinead completed a M.Sc. at Trinity College Dublin and a PhD at King’s College London. She is a scholar of the European Academy of Nursing Science, a Visiting Research Fellow at Trinity College Dublin and was awarded a Fellowship (Ad Eundem) by the Royal College of Surgeons in 2016.

Breda holds a B.Comm and is a member of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants in Ireland since 1982. With almost forty years’ experience in varied industries, Breda supports us in the development and implementation of financial controls within the organisation.

Ag Eisteacht board member, Dr Margaret O’ Rourke, contributes to the science and evidence base of our ABLE training programmes, ensuring they adhere to best practice in terms of a psychological approach to training learning and development. She also supports our literature reviews in the field of relationships in health, education and social care. A practicing clinical psychologist, researcher and medical educator, Margaret is director of Behavioural Science at the School of Medicine at University College Cork, where she leads on psychological medicine and the preparation and support of medical students’ and doctors’ wellbeing. After graduating from UCC, Dr O’Rourke completed a Masters in Psychological Medicine at the School of Medicine University of Glasgow and a doctorate in Forensic Clinical Psychology at Surrey University. She has published and presented nationally and internationally on a wide range of important health topics.