Helen Tully

About

Helen Tully is a professionally qualified social worker who graduated from the University of Galway with a Master's in Social Work in September 2009. She has over eighteen years' experience in the field of child protection, child welfare, fostering and family support. Helen worked for close to seven years in children's residential services and for two years as a family support worker.

She worked as a child protection social worker for four years, a child-in-care social worker for one year and a fostering support social worker for approximately one year. Following her frontline social work experience, she gained four years' experience as a social work team leader in child protection and welfare. During this period she assumed the role of Acting Principal Social Worker, dealing with children at risk in the community and children in care with complex needs.

Throughout her career, Helen has acquired extensive experience of working with vulnerable children and families within a child protection and welfare system that was constantly evolving during that time. She remains highly committed to ensuring the protection of children at risk.

Helen is proficient at conducting parental capacity assessments, pre-birth assessments, comprehensive family assessments, risk assessments, practice audits, case collaborative audits, ability-to-protect assessments, Signs of Safety assessments, and formulating reunification plans.

She has extensive court experience both as a Social Worker and as a Social Work Team Leader, and has provided training to social work teams on court practice. Helen has considerable experience of completing comprehensive reports and assessments for the District Court and Circuit Court and has given professional evidence for over ten years. She has also provided training in report writing to social work teams and has extensive experience of preparing social workers to give evidence in court.

Helen has further contributed to the development of child protection services through child protection and children-in-care audits, advising on practice, policy and procedure development, and providing training. During her tenure as a social work team leader, she was a member of the child sexual abuse assessment oversight group, the child protection, welfare and governance group, and the child protection management auditing team.

Helen works in a child-centred manner, placing emphasis on engaging with children in a meaningful way while working in collaboration with families and professionals to bring about positive outcomes. She places paramount importance on the wishes and feelings of the child when carrying out assessments, looking at the child's world holistically to ensure the best possible outcomes for children. Helen is registered with CORU and holds full Garda clearance.