Rethinking Northern Ireland: Reports from a seminar series on wellbeing in Northern Ireland – Executive Summary

In Autumn 2021 Carnegie UK and the CO3 held seven workshops that explored key issues facing public policy and wellbeing in Northern Ireland. The events aimed to provide a space for civil society, statutory sector, and industry representatives to come together and reflect on challenges that Northern Ireland is facing, and which were only exacerbated during the pandemic.

The seven workshops explored topics that are crucial to both individual and collective wellbeing: childcare infrastructure and early years education, disability and inclusion in the workplace, cross-sectoral collaboration during the early days of the pandemic, government policy, Net Zero and climate emergency, better economy, and mental health.

The short executive summary provides a brief account of each event and highlights the main lessons shared and learned. While each event brought together different experts from varied fields, there was a shared sentiment that what is needed is long-term planning, local solutions, as well as open dialogue between civil society and the statutory sector