Spotlight on Research Lecture Series-‘Why Consent? Why Multidiscliplinary? Why Now?: Making the Case for the Active Consent Programme’s Multi-Sectoral Plan for 2019-2023’

Dr Charlotte McIvor (Drama and Theatre Studies), Dr. Pádraig Mac Neela,

Dr Siobhán O’Higgins &  Kate Dawson (School of Psychology)

Abstract

This talk theorises the signature approach of the Active Consent programme team comprised of researchers from Psychology, Health Promotion, and Drama and Theatre Studies in relationship to the current policy and educational landscape around sexual health education and assault prevention in Ireland and internationally. Working together since 2014, this team designs evidence-informed tools (based on survey and qualitative data), including workshops and creative arts interventions, which in turn facilitate dialogue regarding consent and sexual health. The team’s embrace of consent as an active, positive educational paradigm – inclusive of all genders, all relationships and all sexualities – is intended to empower young people as active agents in the negotiation of their sexual relationships. Now funded between 2019-2023 by the Lifes2good Foundation with support from the National University of Ireland, Galway, the Active Consent programme has set the objective of unifying third-level, secondary school and sporting organisations’ provision of consent-focused sexual health education.  This talk will reflect on the team’s learning since 2014 in partnership with young people, trends in third-level Irish sexual health data that they have observed over this period, and why they believe that a multi-disciplinary approach, which considers interdependent educational and community sectors, is essential for sustainable change in social and personal attitudes towards consent within sexual relationships in a post-#MeToo era. The team will describe the importance of sexual consent as a window on young people’s openness in talking about sensitive topics, and the scope to expand this conversation into mental health and the use of alcohol and drugs.

Dr Pádraig MacNeela leads the SMART Consent project and Active Consent programme. He is a senior lecturer at the School of Psychology, NUI Galway, where he has worked since 2004. He works mainly on youth research, especially in relation to sexual health, mental health, and alcohol use, and on community research projects. He began working on sexual health initiatives following a project with RCNI in 2013 and served on the board of management of Galway Rape Crisis Centre 2014-18. He is co-investigator on the multidisciplinary YOULead doctoral training scheme on youth mental health 2018-2022 and the NUI Galway Resilience Project / Student Information Project – both of which demonstrate the importance of expanding the conversation about sexual health into other areas of well-being in young people’s lives.

Dr Charlotte McIvor is a Lecturer in Drama and Theatre Studies at NUI Galway in the O’Donoghue Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance. She is the author of the book Migration and Performance in Contemporary Ireland: Towards A New Interculturalism, and multiple articles and edited collections focused on contemporary performance, identity, and interculturalism. Other creative projects on sexual consent include an original devised play 100 Shades of Grey co-created with NUI Galway students and co-direction of Lucy’s House Party (with Mick Ruane) for the Manuela Riedo Foundation’s Manuela Programme secondary school education project on sexual consent.

Dr Siobhán O’Higgins is research fellow on the Active and SMART Consent programme,  School of Psychology. A sexologist and sexual health promoter, Siobhán has worked, since 1990, developing and evaluating programmes on sexuality and relationships – for third level students, primary and secondary pupils, parents, prisoners and those with intellectual disabilities. Her PhD in 2011, explored secondary school children’s perceptions on what young people need to know and how they would like to be taught about sexuality and relationships and teachers’ ideas on how to meet those needs. The insights and knowledge gained during her PhD were translated into practice in the WISER programme, presently delivered in over 50 schools in the West of Ireland. She developed the SMART Consent workshop and train the trainer programme with Dr MacNeela to raise awareness and challenge existing worrying social norms about how to be a sexually active young person.

Kate Dawson is currently finishing her PhD research in the School of Psychology on Pornography. Since completing her Masters in Health Promotion she has been delivering workshops in schools as a sexuality and relationship educator on the WISER programme and co-created the website for that intervention.