Helen Byrne has a background in education, psychology, family therapy and the community and voluntary sector. She was a Post Primary teacher from 1980-2018, working mainly in the area of Learning Support but she stepped away from the classroom several times over the years in order to work in other areas. Among other things, she worked: in London as an Education Welfare Officer for Children with Special Educational Needs from 1990-1993; in Focus Housing from 1996-1997; in an Early School Leavers Project for Co. Tipperary VEC from 1996-1997; as a Visiting Teacher to the Traveller Community from 1997-2007; running a programme in The Fingal Centre for the Unemployed, an ICTU centre, for people in recovery from addiction from 2007 - 2009 and as Acting Director of that Centre for all of 2010.
Helen qualified as a Systemic and Family Therapist with The Clanwilliam Institute in 1996 and in the same year achieved her Post-Grad Dip. Psych.. She began her Master's studies in Mindfulness-Based Approaches at Bangor University in 2007. In addition to achieving the Masters from Bangor University, she completed all trainings and supervision with senior teachers at the Center for Mindfulness (CFM) at The University of Massachusetts Medical Center (where MBSR was founded in 1979), including Jon Kabat-Zinn, Saki Santorelli, Melissa Blacker, Florence Meleo Meyer and Pam Erdmann. She trained in supervising mindfulness teachers with Bangor University and has been offering this service since 2014. Helen also trained in delivering Mindfulness and Self Compassion with Christopher Germer and Kristen Neff in 2015.
Helen has been practicing meditation and yoga since 1997 and teaching them since 2004. With Josephine Lynch, she is co-founder and co-director of The Mindfulness & Compassion Centre in Dublin, which runs 8-week MBSR, MBCT and Self Compassion courses, introductory courses and workshops, retreats, an 18 month professional teacher training in MBSR/MBCT and an annual week-long residential mindfulness retreat for experienced practitioners, mindfulness teachers and trainee mindfulness teachers. This annual retreat has been running since 2014. Senior Dharma teachers from the UK, Europe and the US are invited to come to Ireland each year to facilitate these retreats. She is part of the team which set up the M.Sc. in Mindfulness-Based Interventions in UCD in 2014 and continues to lecture on that course.
Helen continues to develop her practice with regular attendance at retreats and trainings led by world-renowned teachers including senior faculty of The Bodhi College: Christina Feldman, John Peacock, Akincano Marc Weber, Christoph Kočk, Jaya Rudgard, and Martine and Stephen Batchelor. She has attended retreats lead by John Teasdale, Sharon Salzberg, Thich Nhat Hanh and Melissa Blacker among others. She is recently completed her second 2-year in-depth programme in Buddhist Psychology with the Bodhi College.
