Dr Jane Mulcahy Delivers Plenary Address

Dr Jane Mulcahy, Research Fellow on the Greentown Programme at the School of Law was invited in her personal capacity to give a plenary address on “Rethinking resilience: understanding state-dependent functioning and offending behavior" on the 4th of July at the Centre for Legal Studies and Specialised Training (CJEFE) in Barcelona. Supported by the European Union, the topic of the Criminal Justice Platform summer course was on “Towards Resilience in Criminal Justice Organisation - Staff – Client”, in collaboration with the Confederation of European Probation, Europris, the European Forum for Restorative Justice and CJEFE. Jane successfully applied for AHSS Faculty Research Board funding to enable her to participate in the full summer course, which she found to be a wonderful learning and networking experience. There were three excellent workshops. David Ivarsson facilitated the workshop on client resilience and Jo Clarke focused on organisational resilience. Jane particularly enjoyed the workshop on staff resilience “Building staff resilience: understanding, practicing, and thriving” led by Iva Prskalo.

This workshop emphasised the importance of body awareness and self-care strategies for people working in the criminal justice system, including researchers. Plenary speakers included Johan Lothe from Norway who presented on the topic of “Resilience in and after detention: understanding the value of working with NGO’s and people with lived experience” and Madeline Petrillo who spoke in the same session as Jane on “Building shame resilience through trauma-informed practice with criminalized women”. Aside from delivery her plenary address, the highlight of the summer course for Jane was the visit to a specialised support unit for people with intellectual disabilities and the operation of the Quatre Camins prison, where staff treated the imprisoned men with great kindness and compassion. Many men living there spoke about how they valued trusting, supporting relationships that helped them better manage their emotions, leading to fewer disciplinary sanctions.

Jane was subsequently interviewed by CJEFE on the value of research and training for professionals in the justice sector for the July newsletter.