A former second-level teacher who became a keen advocate of supports to assist young people in developing through adolescence and into young adulthood has become the 11th honorary fellow at Waterford Institute of Technology.

For 30 years, Beatrice Barry-Murphy taught at the CBS post-primary school in New Ross, Co Wexford where she initiated the delivery of social, personal and health education (SPHE) in the school to promote the health and wellbeing of students.
 
The experienced teacher later worked on delivering training to second-level teachers delivering a substance abuse prevention programme. She also subsequently trained teachers in delivering the SPHE curriculum in their schools.

In 1993, Beatrice was instrumental in upgrading the SPHE programme to an accredited programme in partnership with Waterford Institute of Technology.  She has now delivered this course for 16 years, acting as coordinator since 1997. The course has been successfully evaluated and is now offered as a Master of Arts (MA) programme.

In 1998, she left New Ross CBS to take up a position as Health Promotion Officer in the then South Eastern Health Board (now part of HSE South). Since 2000, Beatrice has delivered SPHE training to teachers.

Having been invited by the Health Promotion Unit of the Department of Health & Children to train tutors in the delivery of the family communication and self esteem parenting programme for parents of teenagers, she trained 48 tutors to deliver the programme. 

Beatrice has also maintained her own professional development by completing her Gestalt training over five years and by attending further training for qualified therapists annually.

Speaking as the honorary fellowship was conferred on Ms Barry-Murphy, Prof Kieran R Byrne, Director, Waterford Institute of Technology said: “Beatrice has dedicated her entire working life to education and is one of the unsung heroes who work with young people and teachers to ensure that school is about much more than simply learning off blocks of information to be regurgitated in exams. Rather, leaders like Beatrice recognise the full potential that education has to facilitate partnerships between teachers and their students as the latter navigate the challenges of their teenage years.

“The second-level education that students receive today is almost unrecognisable from that in place as recently as 15-20 years ago and much of the credit for that transformation rests with people like Beatrice who innovate and break down barriers rather than simply sticking to tried and tested formulae. The opportunities that our young people enjoy today – notwithstanding the current economic conditions – would have been unimaginable for previous generations but so also are some of the threats and temptations they face. Given this, the importance of social, personal and health education cannot be overstated. Beatrice has done excellent work in this regard and is rightly now recognised.”

Responding, the newly-created Fellow described the conferring as an “awesomely breathtaking” honour that left her heart “full of humility and pride”. She also said she just happened to be the “human conduit” for the Institute to show how they value SPHE as “a holistic component in education that contributes to the health and wellbeing of the entire Institute community in a phenomenal way”. She also recalled her pride in telling her since deceased 96-year-old mother that she was to be conferred with the honorary fellowship.

As well as acknowledging the support she has raised from various colleagues in the Health Service Executive (HSE), at Waterford Institute of Technology and in the wider education community, Ms Barry-Murphy thanked her two children and three grandchildren for their loving support.

The 11th recipient of the Waterford Institute of Technology honorary fellowship, she joins previous fellows Brendan Rowe RIP; Sr Consilio; Redmond O’Donoghue; John Treacy; Sahar Hashemi; Alan G Hassenfeld; Pádraig Ó Fainín; Honourable Danny Williams; Ken Bond and Frank O’Conor.

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