DrElizabeth Barrett

Elizabeth is involved in clinically based research in Liaison settings. She is particularly interested in improving outcomes for young people with co-morbid medical and mental health illnesses. She works collaboratively with a range of clinicians looking at the impact of medical illness on mental health. She also has a strong focus on interdisciplinary learning and health humanities work. 

Current/ recent clinical projects explore the areas of Liaison Psychiatry (particularly interdisciplinary approaches to somatic symptoms in medicine), Neuropsychiatry including Tic disorders, Acute presentations and Emergency Department mental health provision, Parent supports (SPACE programme), and Eating Disorders. 

• Recent work including Model of Care group for Liaison Psychiatry (2025), work with the Liaison Psychiatry Committee of the College of Psychiatrists of Ireland and the Academic Committee (current Chair 2025- present). 
• Member of the Paediatric Clinical Advisory group. Invited member of the International Pediatric Association Child and Adolescent mental health working group (2026).
• Member of IACAPAP's IPP SIG (international pediatric psychopharmacology special interest group) 2025- present.
• In 2025, involved with leading special interest groups in Liaison Psychiatry at the ESCAP 2025 conference together with colleagues from both sides of the Atlantic and Europe.
• Member of international expert groups and oversight groups e.g. MEED guidelines/ MAPS study External review groups for NHS ENGLAND supported study. Active participant in international liaison psychiatry networks and training intiatives. 
• Recent collaborative grant applications with colleagues in Paediatrics and Public health.
• Developing elearning and simulated learning projects for trainees; supporting development of the Adolescent Health curriculum at RCPI. Much work supports interdisciplinary work across paediatrics and mental health. Recently completed CYP-APEX training in Manchester.
• Recent grant for a project called "Better Pathways, Better Care" at CHI, looking at peer led review and benchmarking with international services in collaboration with external UK- based colleagues. This project aims to report on what we can do to better improve care for children with mental illness in the paediatric hospital setting as we develop the new Children's Hospital Ireland.
• Working with expert by experience groups: recent work includes exploring Doctor's experiences of breastfeeding, wokring together with expert groups and with a Senior Registrar. This explores the experiences of doctors who breastfeed and return to work, including ability to implement HSE BF guidance in the workplace; studies for with and about women who successfully breastfeed in collaboration with La Leche League. What are the positive health and mental health impacts? Related UCD grant; outputs to date have included 2x student projects, enngagement at the La Leche League conference in 2024 and 2025 international confernence participation and submitted papers. We also collaborated on a project with colleagues in Medical Humanities and interdisciplinary clinicians exploring these interfaces with breastfeeding practices. 
• Balint groups, schwartz rounds and health humanities projects- Elizabeth led the development of the first Schwartz Rounds for Childrens hospitals and the first interdisciplinary hospital balint groups. 

Medical Education research is a significant area of interest. She is interested in narrative in medicine and communication skills and exploring how these might be better fostered in training. She also collaborates with several experts by experience groups, for example in the MindReading initiative, an interdisciplinary collaboration exploring the use of literature in mental and physical health. She is an accredited Balint and Schwartz Lead, has served on UEMS and RCPI/ Irish curriculum development groups and teaches on CYP-APEX and RCPI/ CpsychI masterclasses. 

VISITING FELLOWS:

To date, Paediatric trainees have undertaken up to a year of training with us as part of SPR TRAINING AT RCPI

Additionally 3 international paediatric fellows have joined us via the RCPI IMG scheme. We welcome enquiries re same

SR RESEARCH OPPORTUNITIES:

Presently SR Researchers are undertaking work on volunteerism in mental health, breastfeeding and mental health and Balint work. Previous SR special interest sessions and research projects have looked at aspects of Liaison Psychiatry and Emergency psychiatry, We welcome contact from interested SRs at all stages and in a range of disciplines. We have advertised both clinical and medical humanities listings on the College of Psychiatry site and we have also offered ASPIRE opportunities and POST CCT roles. Please do not hesitate to reach out if this applies to you, 

 

RECENT CLINICAL/ RESEARCH PROJECTS:

1. Liaison Psychiatry, Emergency Psychiatry, Self Harm and Parent supports in the context of self harm:

a. Liaison Psychiatry: REcent work including Model of Care group for Liaison Psychiatry (2025), work with the Liaison Psychiatry Committee of the College of Psychiatrists of Ireland and the Academic Committee (current Chair). Developing elearning and imulated learning projects for trainees; supporting development of the Adolescent Health curriculum at RCPI.  Member of the Paediatric Clinical Advisory group. Invited member of the International Pediatric Association Child and Adolescent mental health working group (2025). Member of IACAPAP's IPP SIG (international pediatric psychopharmacology special interest group) 2025. In 22025, involved with leading special interest groups in Liaison Psychiatry at the ESCAP 22025 conference together with colleagues from both sides of the Atlantic and Europe. Member of international expert groups and oversight groups e.g. MEED guidelines/ MAPS study review groups. Active participant in international liaison psychiatry networks and training intiatives. 

Recent collaborative grant applications with colleagues in Paediatrics and Public health. 

Recent grant for a project called "Better Pathways, Better Care" at CHI, looking at peer led review and benchmarking with international services in collaboration with external UK- based colleagues. This project aims to report on what we can do to better improve care for children with mental illness in the paediatric hospital setting as we develop the new Children's Hospital Ireland.

b. Working with expert by experience groups: recent work includes exploring Doctor's experiences of breastfeedign and return to work, inlcuidn ability to implement HSE BF guidance in the workplace; studies for with and about women who successfully breastfeed in collaboration with La Leche League. What are the positive health and mental health impacts? Related UCD grant; outputs to date have included 2x student projects, enngagement at the La Leche League conference in 2024 and 2025 international confernence participation and submitted papers. We also collaborated on a project with colleagues in Medical Humanities and interdisciplinary clinicians exploring these interfaces with breastfeeding practices. 

b. The SPACE Programme: This is a supportive psychoeducation programme (Supporting the Parents and Carers of young People who Self harm). Supported by an RCT at the outset 10 years ago, we have now offered this for over 10 years at Temple St. Local CAMHS teams and GP’s can refer, people who attend ED are informed about the programme, or parents/carers can attend an “open night” to hear about the programme and decide if they would like to participate. This is an award winning programme that has been shortlisted for and indeed won several awards. In 2020 it was shortlisted by the HSE as an example of Healthcare Excellence. Presently I support the CNS who leads this programme, and co- deliver aspects with her, also supporting exposure of trainees and interdisciplinary professionals to the programme. Thanks to recent research assistant funding, we have been able to look at feedback on the ground from participating families on an ongoing basis and update collaborative teaching packages that support the groups. We are developing a Train the Trainer initiative to expand capacity and train teams outside Dublin to deliver this.

b. Deliberate self harm and Emergency Psychiatry in the Emergency Department.
Thanks to a seed funding grant I was awarded in 2017, we have created a 5-year database of 1200 young people who presented to the ED and were referred acutely to the Psychiatry team from the Emergency Department from 2009-2016. We have presented data in several settings (ESCAP 2018 most recently) and the involved trainees have already been shortlisted for research awards (College of Psychiatry of Ireland RAMI). Paper published (2020) in collaboration with Paediatric Colleagues. We also work collaboratively with several emergency department projects. In 2020 a UCD medical student was also awarded a silver medal at the recent UCD Student research awards for her contribution to a study in this arena and has submitted her work for an Irish journal. An SR in Psychiatry is taking an ongoing role in this study.

c. PREP Study: Pandemic-Related Emergency Psychiatric Presentations for Self-Harm of Children and Adolescents in 10 Countries (PREP-Kids): A Retrospective International Cohort Study
Presentations of self harm and suicidal ideation during the Pandemic are explored in 27 European Centres, led by colleagues at SLAM. I was the main Irish link in the groups, and now Temple St and Crumlin are involved in this study, first paper recently accepted to European Psychiatry (2021) and the international group presented some of the initial data at the College of Psychiatry of Ireland Winter meeting in 2020.

d. ASPIRE Fellow:
We have recently thanks to NDTP recruited to a funded position for a Fellow with an interest in Liaison and Emergency psychiatry, in particular self harm. This is the first time an award of this nature has been given to paediatric mental health services. We will work collaboratively with colleagues at the South London and Maudsley Trust to support this training experience, and the fellow will have the opportunity to work as part of an adolescent crisis team at that site during their award.

2. Compassion Fatigue, interdisciplinary professionals. Introducing Reflective practices and Rounds in Paediatric Hospitals:

As a Balint leader, I have led conferences sessions for  the Sligo Balint conference annually, and previous sessions at AACAP, the Royal Society, ESCAP, Canadian Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the IHCA and a range of trainee and interdisciplinary groups.

I have a long- standing interest in Compassion Fatigue and burnout, as from a very early career stage I was the lead for Ireland in International burnout study research. This interest has long been coupled with actions to address problems identified- for example with the initiation of the national trainee survey and annual trainee conference in Psychiatry. These projects have met the needs outlined and have proven longevity- it was a pleasure for example last year to be invited by the trainee groups to speak at the conference I had set up with colleagues 10 years earlier! This interest has continued as a Consultant working with busy emergency department and hospital colleagues, where I recognise the onoing pressures in clinical services and the evidence base with regard to patient outcomes consequent on clinician compassion fatigue. Specific projects include:

a) Schwartz Rounds
Presently, I led the introduction and ongoing support as Clinical lead for Schwartz Rounds at Temple St (2017- present). This is a major service innovation, that required gaining stakeholder supports, and introducing a very novel concept into an interdisciplinary setting. From advocating to develop this initiative, to securing funding and institutional buy-in, to completed training in 2017 with the Point of Care foundation, supporting an interdisciplinary team of 3 clinicians rolling this out and leading the development of this initiative across the hospital for all disciplines, professionals and staff. In 2021, more staff from diverse disciplines are now engaging with training and the initiative has moved online during COVID-19. This seems to have been implemented with a firm foundation and longevity going forward. Over a 3 year period, this has become a normal part of practice within the hospital, and is an achievement I am very proud of indeed.
b) Introducing interdisciplinary Reflective practice groups:
As an accredited Balint Leader, I also host opt-in trainee reflective practice groups for medical trainees in all disciplines at Temple St (for circa 3 years) and nationally at Balint Leader training days. Recently invited by colleagues at the College of Psychiatry of Ireland to lead this for SR’s with three colleagues and we have now rolled this out for all national Senior Trainees. During COVID-19, 20 paediatric groups have been held, with high attendance and high satisfaction ratings from participants- who “opt in” to the groups. Trainees have presented about the groups to the Irish network of medical educators, to their training programmes, and seeking groups in other hospitals. Consultant colleagues in a range of medical and surgical disciplines are participating in pilot groups in the hospital. This reflects quite a cultural change on the ground and is very much “by, with and for” participants as adult learners.

2. Working with Patient groups, academics and interdisciplinary work- Narrative in Medicine & the MindReading Project:

Founder member of the HEANI network at UCD: https://www.ucd.ie/cepl/research/healthethicsandnarrative/

 
In collaboration with colleagues at the University of Oxford I set up the Mindreading 2017 conference, exploring medical humanities, narrative medicine and the important intersections with mental health. We are a collaboration between medical and medical humanities academics, expert groups, patients and service users, exploring the use of literature in clinical and reflective practice. Conferences in Ireland (UCD), Birmingham and Oxford brining together groups including REFOCUS, Bodywhys, Action on Postpartum Psychosis and many more together with interdisciplinary clinicians, HSCP’s, academics in a truly collaborative approach. Sessions have explored suicide and self harm, psychosis, eating disorders, physical health, and many other aspects of mental health. Use of literature by service users (with the REFOCUS group), the role of drama and literature in the social context of medicine, use of these approaches in undergraduate and postgraduate education, and use of narrative in reflective practice and burnout were explored in events to date.
This has led to innovative co- curated approaches, for example, an installation in the Lexicon library on the theme of Paediatric Mental Health for a 6 week period in parallel with the conference. This collaboration with REFOCUS, The College of Psychiatrists of Ireland, DLR Lexicon, UCD and University of Oxford highlighting adolescent mental health for thousands of users of this flagship library (2017). We also presented some of the installation pieces for the 2017 UCD Festival, exploring Child and Adolescent Mental Health in this large public space engaging the public with University work.
Other outcomes have included survey results showing statistically significant practice changes or changes in understanding of the roles of interdisciplinary professionals (oral presentation at IACAPAP 2018, 2 papers in 2020), Several podcasts of events, the installation and several “spin off” collaborations, e.g. between advocacy groups and literary professionals and several universities, participating in First Fortnight, sessions at the College of Psychiatry annual conference about literature in practice (Prof F. Oyebode, Dr E. Barrett), conference participation internationally, and collaboration with medical colleagues at RCPI. The project has hosted international students, including 3 UCD medical student Summer Research Projects – leading to national conference student presentations, blogs, a wordpress site and a toolkit available at the UCD website.

During the current Pandemic, we led the #pauseforapoem initiative in collaboration with the RCPI archive and a series of podcasts (including in Jan 2021 on exploring Vaccine hesitancy with clinicians, philosophers and science denialism experts, sessions on Eating Disorders and on Stories of Dementia).

RElated podcasts and outputs online. 

In 2026 the HEANI SUMMER SCHOOL at UCD was held, with the inaugural award for Trainees and early career researchers.HEANI Summer School 2026 - UCD Centre for Ethics in Public Life

2. The CAP-STATE study- July 2015- 2020.
Very long-standing interest in education and training, and gaps between curricula and what is experienced by clinicians on the ground in practice. Co- ordinator for this exploration of European training hosted by the ESCAP Research Academy. It looks at recruitment, retention, training standards, trainee perception of quality of training on the ground, supervision, trainer experience and training, work experiences in 37 countries. I was involved in this project from an early stage, developing the tools and methodology and work with two other co-ordinators and collaborate with involved participants in the current data analysis. Book chapter relating to this accepted for publication, 3 international symposia, and a paper published in 2020. This built on my work as lead of the European Federation of Psychiatric Trainees’ Child and Adolescent Psychiatry group, where I led a nascent data base development in 2010, which led to data collection across participating countries, which was presented at a symposium looking at training in Europe at ESCAP in June 2011 and a New Research presentation at AACAP 2011 and at EPA 2012. I also presented this work on behalf of the group at several international conferences. Paper published- European Psychiatry, Aug 2012.On foot of this was co-opted onto the UEMS-CAP group to participate on curriculum development initiatives internationally.


3. Community engagement and impact Evaluation: The Watersports Inclusion Games
Currently leading a project at UCD- in collaboration with several community partners engaging in disability and sports research. To date 2 projects have explored the use of watersports and perceived benefits and barriers for young people with disabilities in collaboration with the Inclusion officer, Sailing Ireland, and UCD SSRA. 
In August 2019 we from UCD Child and Adolescent Psychiatry supported the Games on site with medical student volunteers, and have undertaken further survey work with volunteers and participants. 2 papers accepted to date, student awarded HRB award for work on the project.

4. Organic aspects of illness, Neuropsychiatry, Anti- NMDA receptor Encephalitis

Teaching, symposium on anti-NMDAR encephalitis which I led at ESCAP in 2013 has led to several ongoing collaborative efforts, published clinical reviews and articles in collaboration with Adult neurology and Child and Adolescent colleagues in the UK and Ireland.
Additionally given my interest in Tic and Tourette disorders I have also supported team involvement with a quality improvement project.
Contributed significantly to the national planning documents for Ireland for neuropsychiatry through College of Psychiatrists of Ireland led by colleagues in Adult services.

5. Global mental health, International Exchange Programme, European 2010- Present

Exposure to international approaches and ideas is a positive developmental experience for trainees; and I feel so very privileged to have benefitted as a participant in initiatives such as the Donald J. Cohan Programme in Beijing, in the Global Foundations for mental health initiatives in fora such as Boston Children’s hospital and at the Salzburg Foundation. I was a founder member of the EFPT exchange programme. The programme particularly aims to support trainees with limited training opportunities in their home country, in addition to supporting international experience and exposure to differing training systems and practices. Supporting the programme led to several conference presentations, Lancet letter published by the group. I am an ongoing host; and in recent months also was a mentor for international online groups. Continuing to offer opportunities such as these to international trainees and see mentoring and medical education as important roles for academic psychiatrists, perhaps even more so following the COVID-19 pandemic.
As an invited mentor at IACAPAP in 2020 and 2018, I work with international colleagues from around the world to contribute my time to fostering experience and developmental opportunities for psychiatry trainees.

Similarly, Paediatric or Psychiatry Trainees with an interest in mental health issues are encouraged to discuss their project. Paediatric trainees keen to gain experience in mental health are also welcome to contact Dr. Barrett in this regard.

SSRA STUDENTS:

At Temple St and UCD we welcome contact from potential SSRA students. We host Summer Research Students at UCD, accepting trainees with long-term interests in psychiatry OR related areas with a mental health emphasis. Students have completed research on topics in Liaison Psychiatry, Emergency Psychiatry, Eating disorders and around narrative in medicine projects.
Summer student Research Projects in recent years:
- Boarding in Paediatric Hospital settings

-Creating a network to record data for mental health admissions across the island of Ireland

- Burnout in Trainees/ consultants

-Balint group participation and training for trainees/ trainers in Ireland

Training needs of paediatricians supporting young people with mental health disorders

Parent and young person experiences of care
- Balint groups for Staff
-Experience of Volunteers in a sports initiative for young people with a range of disabilities- what were the benefits?
-COVID-19 impact on Emergency Department Presentations
Summer student Research Projects 2019:
-Supporting the Watersports Inclusion Games
-Narrative in Medical Education
Summer Student Research Projects 2018:
- What are Liaison Services Doing?
- Young people and Self Harm presentations to the ED in TSCUH in 2017
- Evaluating Schwartz Rounds in the Paediatric Hospital Setting
- Follow up of a narrative in Medicine initiative- Mindreading 2018. Pre and post measures, IPE and perception of clinician burnout
Summer Student Research Projects 2017:
- Low knowledge of Eating Disorders and Underweight in Paediatric Trainees in Ireland (With Dr. L. Kyne and Dr. L. Hudson)
- Mindreading Project: Survey of Adult learners (with Unversity of Oxford Colleagues)
- November 2016 Liaison Psychiatry activity in the three Paediatric hospitals in Dublin; with Prof Fiona McNicholas and Dr. Michelle Clifford (trainee in each unit)