Juliet Koprowska

Profile

Areas of expertise

• Communication in social work
• Applied conversation analysis
• Systems theory and group work practice

Academic biography

My academic life has been spent studying, teaching and researching communication, from my first degree in English Literature to a career as a social worker in adult mental health, through long training in Yvonne Agazarian’s theory and methods for understanding human systems, and more than 20 years teaching on social work and post-qualifying programmes at BA and MA levels. My research has been the study of naturally-occurring talk in child protection meetings. My concern with communication is seen through the lenses of systems theory, feminism, social injustice and inequality, and conversation and discourse analysis.

Professional activities

• Chair of GAPS (promoting psychodynamic, systemic and relationship-based social work practice) https://www.gaps.org.uk/
• Member of DANASWAC (Discourse and Narrative Approaches to Social Work and Counselling https://research.tuni.fi/danaswac/
• Member of the Board of Directors of SCTRI https://www.systemscentered.com/
• Member of the Board of Directors of SCTUK https://sctuk.org/
• Member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Social Work Practice

Research & Publications

Research interests

My interests lie in communication. This spans communication in social work, both in individual encounters and in meetings with service users and professionals. What does service user participation look like in reality and how is it accomplished? I draw on the theory and methods of conversation analysis and discourse analysis to study how social work and participation are ‘done’. I am also interested in systems theory and systemic methods, particularly the work of the late Yvonne Agazarian, to understand and intervene in human systems, at individual, group, team and organisational levels.

Recent, selected publications

• Koprowska, J. (2020) Communication and Interpersonal Skills in Social Work (5th edn) London: Sage Learning Matters.
• Koprowska, J. (2020) ‘Communication and Interpersonal Skills’, in J. Parker (ed), Introducing Social Work, London: Sage Learning Matters pp. 113-125.
• Koprowska, J. (forthcoming) ‘Relational Agency and Epistemic Justice in Initial Child Protection Conferences’, in K. Juhila, T. Dall, C. Hall and J. Koprowska (eds), Interprofessional Collaboration and Service User Participation: Analysing Meetings in Social Welfare. Bristol, Policy Press.