ANTOIN BOYD

Senior Educational Psychologist (Retired)

My journey to Queens began when I was 12 when I first became interested in human behaviour, including subscribing to weekly publication entitled’ Understanding Human Behaviour’. I attended UCD and completed a BA (1980), H. Dip. In Ed (1981) and Dip. Psych (1985). This was interspersed with a couple of years teaching children with visual and hearing impairments, followed by a few years as an Executive Officer in the Irish Civil Service. Jobs in psychology were hard to come by back then. All of this circuitous experience proved invaluable as an Educational Psychologist. 

My first psychology job was as Clinical Psychologist working with adults with autism in a residential setting, a formative experience which left a lasting impression throughout the remainder of my working life.  It also spurred me to further professional training in psychology which led to a place on the M.Sc. in Educational and Developmental Psychology course in 1991.  

The M.Sc course in Lennoxvale was an action packed two year course in one, with lectures, clinical placements and thesis.  In addition, two years teaching experience was an entry requirement to the M.Sc at that time.  Dr. Irene Turner and Dr. Harry Rafferty were Course Directors. 

Clinical placements in Belfast and Derry were enjoyable, with spare moments spent collecting data for my research thesis on teacher stress from thirty two schools in placement areas.  During my six week placement in Derry I rented an attic room in a house in Clarendon Street. The carpet had several cuts made by a Stanley knife.  When I asked the landlady, Mrs. Cunnah, she said it was from her son doing art work assignments for college. Her son was Peter Cunnah from the band D-ream! 

Following graduation, I worked for a year with Adults with Learning Difficulties with the Daughters of Charity in Dublin.  I moved to the UK in 1993 and worked as an EP in both main grade and Senior Specialist posts in Dudley, West Midlands, and Preston, Lancashire. I returned home to Ireland in 2000 to work with the newly formed NEPS (National Educational Psychology Service) with the Dept of Education.  Experience from my time in the UK proved invaluable in that fledgling service. 

In 2004, I moved to the Health Service Executive (Irish NHS) to take up a Senior EP post. From 2007 until my retirement in 2021,  I was the psychologist to a specialist behavioural project in Co. Mayo, based on the intervention model used in Girls and Boystown (GBT) in Omaha, Nebraska, USA. GBT, originally known as Boystown was made famous in a 1938 film of the same name starring Spencer Tracey and Mickey Rooney.  The project included a two-week training induction in GBT headquarters in Nebraska and one other location in the USA (West Palm Beach Florida for me!). The project was named ‘Mol an óige’ from the irish proverb: Mol an óige agus tiocfaidh sí (Praise the youth and they will flourish). This was the motto used by Father Flanagan, the founder of Boystown, who came from Co. Roscommon. 

This flagship project in Co. Mayo comprised treatment foster care and in home family service elements. It involved working with foster parents and with biological parents supporting them with children with serious and chronic behavioural problems. The in-home support, known as ‘The Edge’ in Co. Mayo, offered ample opportunity for me to develop the psychology role in the project, including assessment, direct client work, advice  and support to parents and foster parents as well as a consultation and advice service to child care workers, social workers, schools, and other agencies working with individual children.  My EP background in a health service setting came into its own in dealing teenagers, many of whom were on the fringes of the educational system. Many teenagers found the experience of a psychometric assessment (often maligned) as unconditional, validating and empowering compared to their life experiences prior to engaging with the project. The philosophy of the project was that of targeting the support to those in the best position to effect and maintain with the child across several domains including family, school, community, peers, and the individual himself. 

My decision to retire at the end of 2021 was based on the maxim that it’s better to go when you can than when you have to. I had no second thoughts despite it being it being a bit weird in the first few months of my retirement. And I’ve retired from the HSE, not from Psychology! 

Psychology today is facing challenges on several fronts; the most significant is that of social media.  The task of psychology providing the best information based on rigorous research in helping children and teenagers, and their parents,  of  safely and critically navigating social media while their brains are still developing is a major one.

On the developmental front the easy access to information facilitates ready self -assessment and self- diagnosis.  The emergence of the term Neurodivergence offers inclusivity and emphasises strengths of developmental conditions, and this is welcome.  Psychology has a duty to remind that a professional diagnosis is still essential. 

These are just some of the areas I see facing psychology in the present and future.

Antoin Boyd

MSc Educational and Developmental Psychology (1991-92)