Lorna Kerin is Founder and Director of Love Knowledge consultancy, established in 2014 to provide Participatory Action Research services to organisations seeking to improve outcomes for seldom heard populations including children and young people, disadvantaged communities and people with complex disabilities.

Qualified in Social Research since 1995 (BA, University of Limerick), Lorna is a trained Integrative Psychotherapist (H.Dip, University College Cork, 2001), a Creative Arts Therapist (MA, RMIT Melbourne, 2005) with specialist skills in Co-Production Research (University of the Highlands and Islands, 2020).

Lorna has managed, and published, a range of multi-stakeholder research projects, mainly in the fields of youth and community health and mental health. Her research is characterised by a ‘Patient and Public Involement’ (PPI) approach where the expertise of people with lived experience is respected and included in the research process as well as more conventional forms of data.
Lorna’s most recent research has focused on facilitating an action research process to secure integrated care for young people requiring complex care due to the genetic disorder 22q11.2DS. This PPI process is in collaboration with the patient charity www.22q11Ireland.org , hospital consultants, the health service and young experts by experience. See publications here.

Lorna currently works for Tusla Child and Family Agency in Ireland where she developed and wrote the first three-year county plan to improve child and youth population outcomes in the Dublin county of Dun-Laoghaire Rathdown (population of 219,018). The participatory action research process involved over 140 services and 60 young leaders, resulting in 30 interagency evidence-informed, collaborative work packages to improve a range of priority outcomes across health, mental health, education, safety and civic participation. Please see https://www.cypsc.ie/_fileupload/Dun%20Laoghaire-Rathdown%20CYPSC/DLR%20CYPSC-CYPP-2020-2022.pdf