Penny Quinn is a Research Assistant on an Enterprise Ireland-funded pilot project led by Professor Sinéad McGilloway (Centre Director) and being undertaken in collaboration with a company/social enterprise called Life Matters. Penny holds a BA (Hons) degree (1.1) in Psychology from Maynooth University as well as Certificates in both Psychology and Counselling. She has over two years’ research and teaching assistant experience in the Centre for Mental Health and Community Research where she has worked on a variety of topics in the field of mental health and well-being including self-harm, interventions for children and adults with learning difficulties and services aimed at supporting potentially vulnerable parents.
Current Research
Penny’s current research – which is supervised by Professor Sinead McGilloway (Centre Director) – seeks to evaluate the effectiveness and implementation of a new mental health and well-being intervention called the ‘Buddy Bench Aware Programme’ (BBAP) that is currently being delivered to primary school children in Ireland. This school- based, child-led, positive mental health promotion intervention/programme aims to promote children’s emotional resilience, by amongst other things, encouraging the development of conflict-management skills in order to reduce/relieve anxiety, stress, and feelings of isolation. The programme also encourages and teaches compassion, kindness and empathy.