róise cillin

Hands-on social care worker, supporting children and young people in a residential care setting. This involved delivering person-centred and trauma models of care, ensuring that individual needs of service users are being catered for. It required careful consideration of the individual’s psychology and behaviour, carrying out care and placement planning and assessing risk and building strengths to ensure the best outcomes. During this time, I worked extensively with issues such as attachment difficulties, substance abuse, aggression and antisocial behaviour.

Family worker in the OARS Service was a specialized position, working with families in crisis in their homes, carrying out assessments of risk and strengths, safety planning and crisis intervention. During this time, I was responsible for dealing with a wide range of complex cases and achieved strong outcomes by building partnerships with families, remaining attuned to their individual circumstances, and supporting them to develop pathways to improvements. I was particularly interested in the psychological component of family work, concepts which assisted in my assessment and planning of therapeutic interventions.

Challenging role, requiring a high degree of resilience. I was involved with the teen parent residential support service, managing complex cases and forming partnerships with mothers and babies, and extended families to ensure the best outcome for all parties. I built up an extensive knowledge of key childcare legislation and best practice such as Children First. A key part of my role was also effectively managing incidents and interworking with multidisciplinary teams to ensure baby and mother’s social, psychological, and physical health and wellbeing were promoted and maintained.

During this time, I took a career break from the HSE to work as a care and protection social worker in Child Youth and Family Services New Zealand. This was a hugely beneficial learning experience. I gained exposure to the family group conference model, the differential response model and the signs of safety approach. I managed a diverse case load, carrying out investigations and assessments and working with families to implement child protection and welfare plans and therapeutic interventions. This required strong communication and relationship building skills, collaborating with external parties such as CAMHS, schools, GPs, clinical psychologists, and gaining assistance from internal personnel as required.

Residential care centre for children in care. I took up this role on a maternity contract and was integral in securing a successful outcome from a HIQA inspection of the centre. I led a team of 12 social care workers, ensuring care and placement plans were reviewed and updated, oversight to the team managing young people with complex needs, responding to crises and ensuring statutory responsibilities were adhered to. A key part of this role was also acting as an advocate for children, ensuring their rights were being adequately represented, and allowing a space for reflection in supervision.

Diverse role where I am involved in community-based social care services, supporting children and their families referred to the social work duty team. I provide crucial key worker duties, developing and delivering individualised therapeutic support and education. A key part of my role is working to build engagement with families and providing psychoeducation and capacity development to empower parents, and support children