Printer-friendly version

Tony Bates - Founder Director

Tony Bates has 30 years experience of working in mental health. In 2006 he founded Headstrong – The National Centre for Youth Mental Health, an organisation committed to changing how Ireland thinks about young people’s mental health. Tony founded Headstrong based on international evidence that shows most serious mental health issues in later life start from problems in adolescence (12 – 25 years) and that if young people get help to deal with issues early they can avoid developing serious mental health problems. Tony believes that with the help of service providers and communities and young people we can change the existing systems that are not working for young people and Ireland can provide accessible and youth friendly mental health supports for young people that will result in better mental health and life outcomes.   

Prior to establishing Headstrong, Tony worked as Principal Clinical Psychologist at St James’s Hospital. He worked and trained in the US and Oxford University alongside some of the leading international innovators in mental health. On his return to Ireland in 1996 he established the Trinity College Dublin’s Masters in Cognitive Psychotherapy.

Tony is regular contributor to national print and broadcast debate about mental health, including a fortnightly column in the Irish Times. Tony was an editor A Vision For Change, the new ten year Government policy on mental health service reform and author of the bestseller book “Depression: A Common sense approach”.

Bob Illback - Deputy CEO

 Bob is the founder of R.E.A.C.H. of Louisville (Kentucky), an agency that serves children and youth with serious emotional and behavioural disabilities. Prior to joining Headstrong he was CEO of the organisation, and was Professor of Psychology at Spalding University in Louisville. Bob’s early career was spent working in schools as a psychologist and administrator. An internationally recognized evaluation researcher, his professional interests include systems of care in child mental health, school-based and school-linked integrated service programs, community-based intervention, program planning and evaluation, and planned organizational change. He holds a doctorate from Rutgers University, is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, and was the inaugural recipient of the Donald R. Peterson Prize in recognition of career contributions in professional psychology. His most recent co-edited book is entitled, Integrated services for children and families: Opportunities for psychological practice.

Barbara Dooley - Director of Research

Barbara combines her role at Headstrong with her responsibilities as Head of UCD’s School of Psychology and Director of Research for the Doctoral in Clinical Psychology in UCD. To date she has personally supervised 16 doctoral students to completion and oversaw the completion of a further 50. Her particular expertise is in the area of applied research designs and statistical analysis. She has been involved in a number of large scale national studies estimating prevalence of psychological factors among adolescents such as eating disorders, help-seeking behaviour and its link to psychological dysfunction, anxiety and depression. Barbara is a member of the research committee of the Irish Hospice Foundation. She co-edited the Irish Journal of Psychology with Dr. Eilis Hennessy, who is also from UCD’s School of Psychology, from 2004-2007. Barbara was awarded her PhD from UCD, is an Associate Fellow of, and a Registered Psychologist with, the Psychological Society of Ireland and an International Affiliate of the American Psychological Association.

Blanaid Cleary - Director of Finance and Operations

Prior to joining Headstrong, Blanaid worked in Pobal (formerly Area Development Management ltd) for ten years, working in the areas of audit, Financial Management of a national Childcare Programme and, for her last five years, as Financial Controller. Blanaid is a Chartered Accountant who originally trained with KPMG and has previously worked in the private sector in America and Australia. Blanaid has also studied Project and Community Development and Montessori methods of child development.

Joseph Duffy - Director of Clinical Support

Joseph has responsibility within Headstrong for leading clinical innovations to meet mental health needs of young people in the Jigsaw projects and for influencing the development of clinical approaches to youth mental health on a national level. Joseph holds a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology from TCD and an MBA in Health Services Management from the Smurfit Graduate Business School, UCD. For almost ten years he worked with the Department of Justice/Irish Prison Service as a Senior Clinical Psychologist. In 2006, he was appointed the first Director of Professional Development with the Psychological Society of Ireland (PSI), a full time position where he had responsibility for the professional development of psychology in Ireland. From 2009 to 2011 Joseph held the post of Director of Clinical Services at the Granada Institute. He is a Registered Clinical Psychologist and a Fellow of the Psychological Society of Ireland.

Emer Mulligan - Jigsaw Programme Director

Prior to taking up her role as Jigsaw Programme Director with Headstrong, Emer was Chief Executive Officer of an integrated Local Development Company with responsibility for planning, directing and overseeing a range of community and rural development programmes. This role evolved from her previous position as Manager of a Community based Partnership where the primary focus was on managing services to promote social inclusion and overcome marginalization of key target groups. Emer’s career began in Scotland where she worked for 8 years providing guidance and developing services to support young unemployed people. She undertook a brief spell as Clinical Counsellor in a Treatment Centre in Worcester, MA for adolescents requiring mental health services before returning to Ireland to establish her career in working with marginalized individuals and groups to promote inclusion and improve the quality of their life experiences. Emer has a degree in Occupational Psychology and recently obtained a first class honours degree in Counselling and Psychotherapy. She has a keen interest in supporting young people to build resilience to face life’s challenges, particularly challenges to their mental health.

Louize Carroll – Jigsaw Programme Coordinator

Louize Carroll has an honours degree in Psychology and a MA in Social and Organizational Psychology, both from University College Dublin. With a background in mental health research, Louize joined Headstrong as a researcher in January 2007 and shortly became Jigsaw Programme Development Officer. In this role she supports the development and implementation of Headstrong’s Jigsaw Programme in communities around Ireland. This involves building and assessing community readiness for Jigsaw in these locations, and developing and managing community relationships into the planning phase of Jigsaw. 

Louize is also the coordinator of the Headstrong Learning Network, a programme developed to build readiness support interested community service providers in mobilising the rest of their community in developing an initiative to better meet the mental health and well-being needs of young people in the community. She also maintains her research role in the national study (‘My World’), which aims to establish a baseline of data on the mental health and well-being of young people in Ireland.   

Karen Galligan - Planning and Evaluation Coordinator

Prior to joining Headstrong, Karen was Research Officer for the Royal College of Surgeons on a landmark National audit of stroke services in Ireland, and as a research officer and acting head of division for the Health Research Board on the National Physical and Sensory disability database. Karen works closely with Professor Bob Illback, on the needs assessment, evaluation, and planning component of Jigsaw. She has an honours degree in Psychology, an MSc in Information Technology and an MSc in Applied Psychology, all from the University of Ulster.

Nuala Smith – Think Big Coordinator

Nuala is a graduate of Sociology and Economics from UCD and holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Drama and Education from Trinity College. She has a background in youth work and has worked with young people in a wide variety of settings with a particular interest in programme development. In her role as Think Big Coordinator she has supported the development of our national youth engagement programme and works alongside our colleagues in O2 to roll this out.  

Think Big is a Headstrong and O2 initiative which empowers young people to effect change in their communities by leading projects which promote positive mental health and awareness. 

Orlaith Foley – Fundraising Officer

Orlaith is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin where she studied BESS, taking Business and Political Science as her majors. She has just completed a Diploma in Public Relations. She has worked as a Peer Mentor and Peer Supporter to students in Trinity over the past five years. She also took a year out of her studies to take up the position of Welfare Officer of the Students’ Union where she advised students on a wide variety of mental health issues as well as running a campus wide Mental Health Awareness Week Campaign. Orlaith began working in Headstrong as a Fundraising and Communications Intern before taking up a full time position as Fundraising Officer.

Jenny McMahon - Jigsaw Limerick Project Manager

Jenny worked as a part-time lecturer on the MSc in Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) at NUIG and on the undergraduate psychology programme at Mary Immaculate College/University of Limerick. She also worked as an independent researcher for Enable Ireland and The Shannon Consortium. She was the coordinator of 'Le Cheile' a psycho social project of the Limerick Mental Health Association and previously worked as a resource teacher with Scoil Idé in Corbally in Limerick.

Jenny's primary degree was in English and Psychology and she is currently completing her Doctoral thesis in Psychology.

James Barry - Youth Engagement Officer

Prior to joining head office, James worked with Jigsaw Kerry as the Education Coordinator and his previous experience includes a number of roles with young people within outdoor education centres, local sports partnerships and the No Name club. James has qualifications in Health, Fitness and Leisure Studies, and a BSc (Honours) in Physical Education. James, who is originally from Wicklow, is really looking forward to further developing youth engagement in Headstrong.

Jeanne Gallagher - Office Manager

Our new office manager, Dubliner Jeanne Gallagher previously worked in large and small organisations in the not for profit sector. She worked as a Programme Support Officer in Concern. This role included acting as PA to the Overseas Director.

Joanne Arnold - Jigsaw Administrator and Staff Photographer

Joanne holds a BA in Photography and a Professional Diploma in Digital & Online Marketing. She has been working with Kanchi since 2007 and has worked on a number of projects including the O2 Ability Awards and Dialogue in the Dark. Joanne's last role with Kanchi was Marketing Executive. She is originally from Killeshandra, Co. Cavan.

Marie-Louise Neary - Jigsaw Development Officer

Before joining Headstrong as Jigsaw Development Officer, Marie-Louise worked as a Senior Project Manager for The Food Dudes Health Eating Programme. This is currently being implemented in primary schools nationally by An Bord Bia. Prior to her role with Food Dudes, Marie-Louise worked as a lecturer in public health and health promotion at the Institute of Technology in Sligo.

Marie-Louise holds a BSc (Honours) in Public Health and Health Promotion and an MA in Health Promotion. The focus of her MA research centred on evaluating the implementation of a school based mental health promotion initiative.

Marie-Louise is originally from Donegal and she will be running the Headstrong Learning Network which brings together community leaders in mobilising their own local areas to better meet the mental health needs of young people.

Lynsey O'Keeffe - Planning and Evaluation Officer 

Lynsey is a registered psychologist with the Psychological Society of Ireland. She was awarded her PhD entitled ‘Gender stereotypes in young people’s perceptions of emotional expression and help-seeking behaviour’ from UCD in 2010. She worked as a postdoctoral research fellow in UCD exploring complicated grief in adults with intellectual disabilities and lectured on the MSc in Rehabilitation and Disability Studies. Prior to joining Headstrong Lynsey held a postdoctoral research position in DCU setting up an initial evaluation of LauraLynn House at the Children’s Sunshine Home – Ireland’s first children’s hospice. She was also involved in evaluating an Irish Cancer Society project ‘Building effective cancer support services in Ireland’. Lynsey joined the Planning and Evaluation team at Headstrong in March 2012.

Gillian O'Brien - Director of Training and Education 

Gillian holds the position of Director of Education and Training where she has responsibility for developing and managing the delivery of mental health education and training programmes for young people, parents, professionals and the wider community.  Gillian graduated from Trinity College Dublin with an honours degree in Psychology.  She was subsequently awarded a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology from Queen’s University Belfast in 2006.  Prior to joining Headstrong, Gillian worked for two years as the Clinical Coordinator of our Jigsaw project in Ballymun.  Gillian has also worked as a clinical psychologist in a variety of child and adolescent mental health settings in Dublin, Northern Ireland and Central America.