News & Events

Lunchtime Webinar Series: Complexity Theory for better Child Protection & Welfare and Public Services

Date Released: 20 October 2025

UNESCO Child and Family Research Centre

In Association with the

Institute for Lifecourse and Society, University of Galway

Lunchtime Webinar Series

Title: Complexity Theory for better Child Protection & Welfare and Public Services

Complexity is a feature of modern public service provision and rather than fear and seek to simplify it, we need to harness it. From 2023-2025, the UNESCO Child & Family Research Centre ran six webinars exploring complexity theory and its implications for public service and child protection and welfare work. The webinars were led by international and national academic experts, with their insights and implications for practice and service delivery reflected on by Irish service leaders. Our overall aim was to increase insights into how complexity theory frameworks and approaches can help practitioners, managers, leaders and academics to better understand and engage with complexity at practice, service and system levels. A full listing of the webinars and links to recordings and slides is provided below.

Webinar 7: ‘Making Complexity Theory Work for you!’

This webinar brings the webinar series to a close. It incorporates key learnings from the series and includes insights from our paper on complexity theory and its application to child protection and welfare, published in the British Journal of Social Work; and our recently published book, ‘Systems Complexity in Child Protection and Welfare, Policy, Leadership, Practice and Evaluation’ (Routledge, 2024). Our aim for this final session is to provide participants with a series of actionable messages on complexity theory to improve practice, services and policy.

Date and Time: Thursday, 20th November, 2025, 1:00-200pm (GMT)

Speakers:

Dr. Aisling Gillen, Visiting Research Fellow, UNESCO Child & Family Research Centre, University of Galway

Dr. Carmel Devaney, Associate Director, UNESCO Child and Family Research Centre & Head of Discipline, Applied Social Science, School of Political Science and Sociology, University of Galway

Professor Caroline McGregor, Director, Institute for Lifecourse and Society (ILAS), University of Galway

Professor John Canavan, UNESCO Chair in Children, Youth, and Civic Engagement & Director of the UNESCO Child and Family Research Centre (UCFRC), University OF Galway.

To register please visit https://forms.office.com/e/PALCsZvDca

We are delighted to share our bank of resources hosted by the UNESCO Child and Family Research Centre at University of Galway — the Complexity Theory Webinar Series. We invite you to explore, share, and revisit these resources at https://www.universityofgalway.ie/cfrc/news-and-events/complexitytheorywebinarseries/

Webinar	Speaker	Respondents
Webinar 1: Complexity Theory and Child Protection and Welfare	Professor Rick Hood, Kingston University, London.	Professor Caroline McGregor, Professor in Social Work, University of Galway. Mr Cormac Quinlan, Assistant National Director for Practice Reform, Tusla, Child and Family Agency.
Webinar 2: Complexity Theory and Public Services	Dr Mary Lee Rhodes, Associate Professor of Public Management and Co-Director of the Centre for Social Innovation at Trinity College, Dublin.	Dr Fergal Lynch, Senior Lead, Government and Public Policy Engagement, Institute for Lifecourse and Society, University of Galway.
Webinar 3: The Complexity of Finding out What Works	Eileen Munro, Professor of Social Policy, London School of Economics.	Dr. Cormac Forkan, Discipline of Applied Social Science, School of Political Science and Sociology, UNESCO Child and Family Research Centre, University of Galway
Webinar 4: Complexity and Leadership	Professor Mary Uhl-Bien, BNSF Endowed Professor of Leadership at the TCU Neeley School of Business in Texas.	Mr. Tony Canavan, Regional Executive Officer for the HSE West and North West region.
Webinar 5: Complexity Theory and Children’s Participation	Samia Michail, Lecturer in Social Work at the School of Social Sciences, Western Sydney University.	Dr Caroline Duignan, Children and Young People’s Service’s Committee, Roscommon.
Webinar 6: Complexity Theory and the Importance of Networks	Dr Marianna Colvin, Associate Professor in the Sandler School of Social Work at Florida Atlantic University.	Marie Crawley, Area Manager, Donegal, Tusla Child & Family Agency.