Content
Public lecture: Social Work: What is it good for?
Professor Jan Fook
29 September 2010, 3–4pm
Lecture Theatre 1, Building K, University of the Sunshine Coast
All members of the public are welcome to attend this free event. No registration is required.
Overview
It is easy to take social work for granted: either to assume it is an absolute necessity, or to blame it for failing to right our social ills. But what do the experiences of social workers themselves actually tell us about what is good about social work? In my paper I draw from many years of my own experience in helping social workers critically reflect on significant events in their professional lives. What I have found from these accounts is an affirmation of the work of social work, particularly in the micro-dynamics of making meaning of personal lives, within an uncertain social and political context.
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Professor Jan Fook
Professor Jan Fook has been a social worker and educator for nearly 30 years. She is currently Professor of Professional Practice Research and Director of the Interprofessional Institute at the South West London Academic Network (Royal Holloway, St Georges (University of London) and Kingston University).
She has born and educated in Australia where she has worked most of her life. She has held a variety of academic positions (including professorial positions at La Trobe University, Southampton University and Diakonhjemmet College, Oslo) but has an ongoing interest in professional education.
Over the last 15 years she has focused on developing critical reflection, and has conducted hundreds of workshops with professionals in many countries. Her research work involves the empirical research of professional practice, and developing better methods for representing the complexity of this. Her books include: Radical Casework (Allen and Unwin); Professional Expertise (with Martin Ryan and Linette Hawkins, Whiting and Birch); Social Work: Critical Theory and Practice (Sage) and Practising Critical Reflection (with Fiona Gardner, Open University Press).
More information
Contact Christine Morley
Tel: +61 7 5459 4723
Email: cmorley@usc.edu.au