Karen Leonard, Ph.D.

Lecturer in Social Care and Early Childhood Education, Technological University of the Shannon, Athlone, Co. Westmeath, Ireland.

Systemic and Family Psychotherapist at Boyle Family Resource Centre and in private practice both situated in Co. Roscommon, Ireland.

Email: karen.leonard@tus.ie, info@karenleonardtherapy.ie
Website: www.karenleonardtherapy.ie

Dr Karen Leonard studied social work at University College Dublin and worked as a child protection social worker and then as a family worker in a family centre in Dublin, Ireland. She studied for a M.Sc. in Psychotherapy (systemic) at the Mater Family Therapy Unit and UCD and is a Registered Family Therapist with the Family Therapy Association of Ireland (FTAI) and a Registered Social Worker with CORU (Health and Social Care Professionals Council).

She completed her Professional Doctorate in Systemic Practice at the University of Bedfordshire, Luton, UK in 2020. Her research entitled Creating Spaces for Relational Reflexivity in Social Care Education involved the development of a model of systemic and relational reflexivity for professional education that encourages students to become more reflexive of themselves and their own family and life experiences for their practice in social care. It is envisaged that this model and training programme could also be useful within other disciplines such as social work, counselling and psychotherapy, early years and other education contexts.

She has experience working with children, adolescents and their families in several family centres in Dublin and the West of Ireland, and currently at her own private practice and at the Boyle Family Resource Centre, Co. Roscommon, Ireland.

She is a full-time Lecturer in Social Care and Early Childhood Education and Care at the Technological University of the Shannon (TUS), Athlone since 2000, and has taught at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. She is a Course Tutor and Doctoral Supervisor on the Professional Doctorate in Systemic Practice (PDSP), University of Bedfordshire, Luton, UK.

Currently she is a member of the FTAI (Family Therapy Association of Ireland) Feedback Journal Subcommittee which publishes articles relating to systemic theory and practice.

Publications:

Leonard, Karen (2021). The “proof” of the pudding is not just in the eating. Savouring the richness of the research process experience. Murmurations: Journal of Transformative Systemic Practice, 3(2), 100-108. https://doi.org/10.28963/3.2.7

Leonard, Karen (2020). Creating Relationally Reflexive Spaces in Social Care Education. Unpublished Doctoral Thesis, University of Bedfordshire: Luton. Available at:

Leonard, Karen (2021).  “We forget lecturers are human too”-An Educator’s Reflexive Account of bringing systemic relational reflexivity into social care education.  Feedback: Journal of Family Therapy Association of Ireland

Leonard, Karen (2015).  “You Don’t Understand!” – Navigating the Parenting Contours of Adolescence.  In Colm O’ Doherty & Ashling Jackson (Eds.) Learning on the Job: Parenting in Modern Ireland.  Dublin: Oaktree.