Justin O’Brien, who died two days short of his 73rd birthday, was a lifelong campaigner for the most marginalised people in society, especially homeless people and at-risk children. Among the many organisations he worked with were the Simon Community, Focus Ireland, Circle Housing Association and, in the last years of his life, the recently formed Children’s Residential and Aftercare Voluntary Association .
He moved to the University of Glasgow to study for a diploma in social work. From 1981 until 1984 he worked as a community care based social worker with Strathclyde Regional Council in Greenock, Scotland. On his return to Ireland in 1984 he was appointed project leader with the Eastern Health Board, with the task of establishing a Family Resource Centre in Ballymun. In 1985 Sr Stan had founded Focus Point, and he joined it in 1986, working there for 17 years as it evolved into Focus Ireland.
He began research into what he found to be the transformation and privatisation of this care, and was concerned that this big shift in public policy was receiving very little public scrutiny However, he had not lost his interest in history and politics, and on his retirement he completed a master’s in public history and cultural heritage at Trinity College Dublin. His dissertation was titled The Institutional Childcare Past of Ireland: How Might it Be Remembered? It examined the State’s response to the legacy of institutional childcare abuse, and specifically looked at three of the uncompleted recommendations of the 2009 Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse Report .
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