Kildare academic to lead all-island mental health network
Professor Sinead McGilloway
MAYNOOTH University academic Prof Sinead McGilloway is heading the first all-island mental health collaborative research network, ‘CO-PRIME’, which has been set up to help combat mental ill health in a more co-ordinated way right across Ireland.
“By combining mental health research expertise and resources north and south, this initiative – which is the first of its kind in Ireland – will bring real benefits to people who are affected by mental health difficulties and their families” said Professor Sinéad McGilloway, who is working in collaboration with CO-LEADS, Dr Eve Griffin from the National Suicide Research Foundation and Professor Brian McGuire from the University of Galway.
Prof McGilloway is founder director of the centre for mental health and community research in Maynooth University’s Department of Psychology and Social Sciences Institute. She has special interests in child and adult mental health and wellbeing in the community, including prevention and early intervention, service evaluation and vulnerable/marginalised groups. She is widely published and has won national and international awards for her research. She is a co-author of Ireland’s first ever National Mental Health Research Strategy (2024).
The five-year CO-PRIME (COproducing and Promoting Research and Innovation in Mental HEalth) initiative funded by the Health Research Board and launched on Thursday 8 January, and aims to reshape some of the ways in which mental health research is conducted and, in particular, how the knowledge and evidence arising from research is used across the island to help inform services and shape government policy.
“The launch of CO-PRIME is a very important moment for mental health research across the island of Ireland,” said Prof McGilloway, speaking about the exciting initiative.
“For the first time we are bringing together diverse voices, including those with lived experience, to build a truly collaborative, inclusive and evidence-informed approach to understanding and addressing mental health needs.
“As well as helping people with mental health difficulties, this network will benefit other stakeholders working in the area including health and social care services, researchers, policy makers, community organisations and the general public.
“CO-PRIME has many specific goals it aims to achieve. It will support meaningful and sustained collaboration across Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Crucially, it will embed the involvement of people with lived experience of mental health difficulties across all of its activities.
“We will also foster a culture of wide stakeholder involvement in the design, conduct and application of research, including perspectives from marginalised and underrepresented communities,” said co-lead, Dr Eve Griffin. “And we will promote evidence-informed, rights-based approaches in mental health policy and practice.
“We will aim to build capacity across the mental health ‘ecosystem’ through training, education and researcher development,” said Professor Brian McGuire.
“We know that mental health difficulties affect directly or indirectly every community, family and part of society, and through CO-PRIME we are working to address that in a more co-ordinated, all-island fashion” he added.
