Ms Amanda Sillars is the founding director of the Eeny Meeny Miney Mo Foundation, a world-leading not-for-profit charity dedicated to educating, raising awareness, research and providing resources on parental alienating behaviours. Ms Sillars has lived experience of being alienated from her mother during childhood and then alienated from her children in adulthood, now reunified. She has helped countless individuals affected by parental alienating behaviours through her support group and advocacy.

Dr Matthewson is a senior lecturer in the school of psychological sciences at the University of Tasmania and a senior clinical psychologist in private practice. She is the lead researcher in the Family and Interpersonal Relationship Research Lab at UTAS. She is on the Board of Directors of the Eeny Meeny Miney Mo Foundation and the Parental Alienation Study Group. Both organisations are not-for-profit organisations raising awareness of parental alienation and parental alienating behaviours.

Dr Matthewson's work focuses on the fields of family relationships, family violence, parental alienation and psychological trauma. She is co-author of the highly acclaimed book Understanding and Managing Parental Alienation: A Guide to Assessment and Intervention. She has also published extensively on the topic of parental alienation in well-respected peer review journals. She was past Chair of the Parental Alienation Study Group Research Committee and is editor-in-chief of Parental Alienation International.

Dr Matthewson provides supervision to psychology interns, clinical psychology registrars and early career psychologists and is passionate about training the next generation of psychologists.

Jennifer Jill Harman, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Colorado State University in the Applied Social & Health Psychology program.

She received her doctorate in Social Psychology from the University of Connecticut in 2005 and specializes in the study of intimate relationships. She also has two master’s degrees from Teacher's College, Columbia University in psychological counselling, and served as a family and substance abuse counsellor for several years prior to her entry into academia. She is currently an associate professor of psychology at Colorado State University.

Dr. Harman is an accomplished and awarded scientist and teacher and has published many peer-reviewed articles and book chapters and has presented her research regularly at scientific conferences around the world. Dr. Harman's areas of research expertise focus on the topic of power in relationships: power in how intimate partners influence each other for good or bad. As an applied social psychologist, her work has applied social psychological theories on intimate relationships to the study of public health problems ranging from STI prevention to domestic violence. For nearly the last decade, her primary focus has been on the study of parental alienation.

Aside from her professional publications, Dr. Harman also writes articles for general audiences, such as The Conversation, and her work is republished on thousands of other news sites (e.g., Associated Press, Raw Story). Her 2016 TEDx talk on parental alienation, has had thousands of views.

Dr. Harman regularly conducts trainings for legal and mental health professionals on parental alienation and has served as an expert witness and consultant on civil and criminal cases involving parental alienation and other forms of family violence.

Dr Chip Chimera is the Director of Innovation and CPD here at the Institute with responsibility for the CPD programme and oversight of the Foundation and Intermediate years. She is one of the core tutors for our agency-based practice courses.

Chip’s practice interests include the use of action methods in systemic practice and working with families in high conflict post-divorce situations.  Chip integrates attachment theory into her practice and has been instrumental in the development of the Child Focused Practice courses here at IFT which are unique in the country.

Dr. Padraic Gibson is a consultant clinical psychotherapist, supervisor and clinical trainer. He is currently the Clinical Director of The OCD Ireland. He has worked as Clinical Director with the Irish Health Services Executive, Statutory funded services for over two decades.

Clinical Fellowship and Association Dr. Gibson is a part-time lecturer and a senior research associate at Dublin City University, Centre for Education Disadvantage, he is also a senior clinical researcher, and lecturer at the Post Graduate School of Psychotherapy, The Centro di Terapia Strategica, Tuscany, Italy. Dr Gibson is also a research and training associate at, LACT, Paris France and a lecturer at The Institute of Further Education Malta and visiting lecturer at The Institute of Family Therapy Malta.

Andrew Doyle, BSc, MA, BCL, Dip Law, Dip French, is a postgraduate researcher at University College Cork on the topic of “Regulations affecting the welfare of children in high conflict separations including parental alienation in Irish family law”. Andrew is the compliance officer of the non-governmental organisation Alienated Children First and has made submissions on their behalf to the  Joint Committee of the Oireachtas on the Family Court Bill and also to the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child Periodic Reporting on Ireland and is planning to represent them at the formal review session in Geneva in January 2023. Andrew is a native of Dublin Ireland, who has worked around the globe before taking up coastal semi-retirement in West Cork.

The presentation will cover parental alienation from the legal perspective on the challenges of gathering the evidence of a widespread issue when Irish reporting and research is scarce due to the restrictions of privacy, child protection and court rules. In particular it will focus on the rights and law around the voice of the child, the challenge of establishing the authenticity of that voice which may be manipulated and the contention between this and the best interests of the child principle. There will be opportunities for practitioners to be involved in follow up research.