Profile

Areas of expertise

• Risk and professional decision making
• Evidence based practice
• Work with involuntary service users, including offenders
• Mental health, especially personality disorder
• Research philosophy and method

Biography 

Inspired by life experience and a first degree in social policy and criminology, I have not deviated from my 'core interests' in two decades. After qualifying as a social worker, I spent the majority of my career as a practitioner in the probation service, working with both young and adult offenders in London and Yorkshire. I supervised numerous social work students and trainees on placement as a practice teacher and practice development assessor. I gradually developed specialist knowledge and experience in forensic practice which led to a more specialized role working with mentally disordered offenders, especially those with a diagnosis of personality disorder.  

My teaching and research interests reflect my experience as a social work practitioner in the probation service and forensic settings. I am particularly interested in the intersections between social work and the criminal justice system and health service as they manifest in the policy and practice of risk assessment and risk management. More generally, I am interested in clinical decision making by social work practitioners, and work with involuntary service users. Since starting at York in 2006, I have also developed an interest in research methods and philosophy and their relationship to practice.

Professional activites

I am European reviews editor, and a member of the editorial executive, of the journal Qualitative social work (Sage).

Between 2001-2007 I was an elected member of the editorial board of the Probation Journal.

Winner, Jean Smith Award for social work, University of Hull, 1997.

Current work in progress

• Decision making and complexity theory
• Risk, discretion and the logic of actuarialism
• Safety in social work
• 'Geographies of risk' – space, place and risk
• Pragmatic philosophy and practice

Research

Research

I was recently awarded my PhD by the University of Leeds for my thesis, 'Governing risk: the micro-politics of control in contemporary social work'.

In 2001 I was a Cropwood Fellow at the Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, where I undertook practitioner research into ‘The challenges of achieving effective practice with MDOs’.

Phd supervision

Sarah Czarnecki - 'The impact of human agency on the role of probation officers in the management of offender risk of harm' (with Ian Shaw).

Hannah Jobling - 'An ethnographic study of the implementation of community treatment orders and their implications for practitioners, service users and carers' (with Ian Shaw).

David Saltiel (registered with University of Leeds) - 'Decision making in social work with children and families' (with Dawn Dowding and Ray Pawson).

Publications

Publications

I am currently working on two books:

Governing risk - care and control in contemporary social work, Palgrave Macmillan.

Mental health social work - the art and science of practice, Pearson Education (with Juliet Koprowska, Liz McDermott and Pat Walton).

(2010) Evidence and knowledge for practice, Polity Press (with Tony Evans).

In 2006 I authored the 'Risk and dangerousness' module for the online MA in Criminal Justice at NEWI.

(2002) 'Review essay', Criminal justice, 2 (4), 493-498.

Conferences and presentations

'Geographies of risk – mapping the terrain of a developing research agenda', British Society of Criminology conference, Northumbria University July 4th 2011.

'Exploring the potential of pragmatism as a philosophy of practice', European conference for social work research, Oxford University, March 24th 2011.

'The rise of risk assessment and management in social work with adults: implications for theory and practice', Making Research Count, University of York, June 6th 2007.

'The micro-politics of danger in the assessment and management of risk', Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology conference, Hobart, Tasmania, February 9th 2006.

Teaching

I convene the modules 'Theory and knowledge for practice' (BA Year 2), 'Social work research 1' (MA Year 1) and (with Juliet Koprowska) 'Mental health social work' (BA3/MA2). Additionally, I teach on modules across the social work programmes, and also contribute to undergraduate and postgraduate social policy teaching.