Pat Leahy has been with the School of Applied Social Studies since 2001. Prior to this, Pat was employed for ten years in a diverse range of youth work settings including youth clubs and youth projects. These included the Cork Youth Federation, Midleton Special Project for Youth and a Northside Cork City Local Drugs Task Force Project. Alongside mainstream Youthwork he has had considerable experience in working with specific groups of young people from marginalized circumstances such as young people who are homeless, drug using, early school leaving and from ethnic minority backgrounds. He has also established new youth groups for specific groups in particular areas of Cork city. He was the chairperson of Youth Work Ireland Cork from 2005 to 2013 http://www.ywicork.com/) and served as a director of Youth Work Ireland (2010 - 2013), the largest youth organization in Ireland. He served as treasurer to the Cork Local Travellers Lottery fund (1996/7) and on the national executive of the Independent Workers Union (2005). Pat was the researcher for the Irish contribution to two European Commission funded pan-European research projects; Project YOYO; Youth Policy and Participation; Potentials of Participation and Informal Learning in Young People's Transitions to the Labour Market, A Comparative Analysis Across Ten European Regions (2001-2005), and Project Up2Youth; Youth, Actor of Social Change (2006-2008). He also drafted the final Up2Youth project briefing for the European Commission. Pat's other research work includes an evaluation for the Gurranabraher drugs task force project (2003) and a Youth Survey of Gurranabraher (1994). With the aid of two students (Aoife Farrell and Emma Bennett), he completed a major study into the effec

Pat Leahy's main professional research interests are; 1;Young people and their position in society, youth organisations, and youth work. 2; Psychosubstance use in society. At the moment (Jan 2015) Pat is involved in a number of research initiative's; In collaboration with Prof Fred Powell, Dr Margaret Scanlon and Dr Etaoine Howlett in UCC, and with Prof Maurice Devlin in Maynooth University Pat has recently completed research for the Irish research Council and the Department of Children and Youth Affairs on the impact of volunteer led youth work in Ireland. In association with Dr Howlett he is currently completing a piece of youth led research for the Cork Education and Training Board that involved training and facilitating a group of young people from the Cork County Comhairle na nÓg to conduct their own research. Pat is involved with the 'Intersections' project coordinated by Ms Eileen Hogan which is looking at the role of music in youth work, and he is also investigating the effects of austerity on youth projects in Cork city from the front line youth worker's perspectives. Additionally, Pat has long held a personal interest in history, particularly military history. Pat's teaching role includes research and in this capacity he has integrated undergraduate students into live research projects as researchers on a number of occasions.

Pat's teaching work consist's of a variety of modules and covers a number of subject areas within the social science remit. He teachs research, substance use, youth work and community development both within and outside the School of Applied Social Sciences. Pat is an advocate of Freirian education and values interactive and lively discourse in learning; in this respect his youthwork background of group facillitation is a tremendous professional asset. He also values the 'hedge school approach'; i.e., the view that learning is best facillitated by students and pedagogues literally sitting on the grass together and discussing and debating ideas and events in a social fashion. This does not conflict with  an internet based remote  or virtual learning environment; it is however a much better environment that features human interaction and warmth.