Karen Winter, ESWRA Chair
Lecturer in Social Work, Queens University, Belfast
I am engaged in social work research that is organised under four main themes: children and young people in care; children’s rights; communication and relationships; vulnerable families and their children. The focus of my research is to improve outcomes for children and young people by research that: raises awareness about children’s rights and barriers that hinder opportunities for their engagement in rights; develops practice models; and evaluates programmes and services to ensure that children are benefiting and that service delivery achieves social justice by effectively addressing inequalities and discrimination. Research projects of which I am a team member are underpinned by both qualitative and quantitative methodologies and are multi-disciplinary. My work has contributed to the profile of high standard social work research as indicated through journal publications, research reports. My work is engaged with by practitioners regionally, nationally and internationally in their work with children.
PhD, Professor Florin Lazar, Vice Chair
University of Bucharest, Romania, Faculty of Sociology and Social Work, Department of Social
Work
I am full professor of social work (2016), at University of Bucharest, Faculty of Sociology and Social Work
starting academic career in 2001. I teach social policy, social work research methods, advanced social
research and supervise doctoral students (habilitation in Sociology and Social Work). I carried out more
than 25 research projects using qualitative, quantitative and mixed research methods financed by EU, UNICEF,
Government of Ireland, UNFPA, or Ministry of Education. Recently, I carried out research on adoption, HIV
stigma and social work profession. Before joining academia, I worked for 12 years as a social worker with
people living with HIV and vulnerable children and youth. I am member of the editorial board of the European
Journal of Social Work and executive editor of Revista de Asistenta Sociala (Social Work Review). I am
president of the Social Work Research Commission and member of the Executive Board of the National College
of Social Workers from Romania (the national professional organization), founding member of the National
Association of Schools of Social Work (since 2010) and member of the Executive Committee of the European
Association of Schools of Social Work (since 2017).
Further details: https://florinlazar.wordpress.com
Dr María Inés Martínez-Herrero, ESWRA Secretary
Lecturer at the National University of Distance Education (UNED), Spain
Inés qualified and gained working experience as a social worker in Madrid, Spain, before moving to England where
she did a PhD (Durham University) and worked as a social work lecturer (2015-2021, Northumbria and Essex
Universities). In 2021 she returned to Spain where she is a social work lecturer at the UNED University. Inés is
passionate about social work research (particularly international, comparative, and critical theory and human
rights-based research) and is part of established national (Spain & England) and international social work
research groups and networks. In 2018, she joined the ESWRA Resources Committee and in February 2020 she was
elected as an ESWRA board member. She has been the ESWRA vice-chair for April 2022 -April 2024. She brings to
ESWRA her experience and a truly international perspective on social work research and collaboration in the
profession, alongside a great deal of enthusiasm, dynamism, and thorough work.
m.ines.martinez@der.uned.es
ResearchGate profile: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Maria_Ines_Martinez_Herrero
Koen Hermans, ESWRA Treasurer
LUCAS, Centre for Care Research and Consultancy, KU Leuven
Section Social Policy and Social work, Centre for Sociological Research, Faculty of Social Sciences
https://www.kuleuven.be/lucas/nl/overLUCAS/team/team/00010601
Koen Hermans is assistant professor Social work and social policy at the Centre for Sociological Research, KU Leuven. He is also project leader at LUCAS, Centre for Care Research and Consultancy. His research interests are social work research methods, homelessness, discretion and social work as a human rights profession. He has been involved in many policy- and practice oriented research projects. He is the Chair of Cost Action 15218 ‘Measuring homelessness in Europe’. In Flanders, he is the chair of the Platform ‘Strong social work’, a cooperation between a variety of social work actors to strengthen social work.
Darren Hill, ESWRA Treasurer
Leeds Beckett University, School of Health, Social & Community Studies Group.
Darren Hill is the Reader in Social Work at Leeds Beckett University (LBU). He is one of the Convenors for the ESWRA Social Work History & Research Special Interest Group. Darren lectures on the professional social work awards at LBU, as well as teaching on our postgraduate Mental Health and Addiction awards. His research interests include social work history, social work theory, mental health, and addiction.
Profile link: https://www.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/staff/dr-darren-hill/
Dr. Marcin Boryczko, Chair - Member Services and Research Resources Committee
Ph.D., Assistant Professor,
Faculty of Social Science, Institute of Education, Department of Social Pedagogy, Gdańsk University, Poland
Marcin Boryczko is an associate professor at the University of Gdańsk/Poland where he teaches at the Social Work BA and MA. He is a member of Board of experts of Polish Federation of Social Workers and Social Service Employees Unions (Polska Federacja Związków Zawodowych Pracowników Socjalnych i Pomocy Społecznej) and Human Rights Commissioner in the European region as a member of International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW). His main research interests include social work education, critical thinking in social work, safety in social work practice, neoliberal governmentality in social work, and social workers’ protests.
Web profile: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Marcin_Boryczko
E-mail: marcin.boryczko@ug.edu.pl
Sarah Vicary, Chair Awards committee and Elections and Nominations committee
Professor of Social Work and Mental Health, School of Health Wellbeing and Social Care, The Open University, United Kingdom
Sarah is Professor of Social Work and Mental Health at The Open University. Her research interests lie in the generation, dissemination and application of legal roles in Mental Health Social Work (MHSW) at the forefront of explorations of regulatory practices that restrict human behaviour. Underpinned by professional registration as a social worker Sarah provides sustained authorship of field-leading outputs offering MHSW expertise and guidance impacting on government, regulatory policy makers and practitioners.
Dr Sarah Vicary | OU people profiles (open.ac.uk)
Liz Frost, Chair - Special Interest Group Development Committee
Associate Professor, Social Work.
University of the West Of England, Bristol, Department of Health and Social Sciences
https://people.uwe.ac.uk/Person/ElizabethFrost
Ippokratis Efstathiou, Co-chair, PhD & Early Career SIG & Chair External Relations
Committee
Department of Social Work, University of West Attica, Athens, Greece
Ippokratis Efstathiou is a PhD candidate and adjunct Academic Staff in the Department of Social Work at the University of Western Attica, Greece. He holds an MSc in Social Discrimination, Migration and Citizenship, and a degree in Social Work from the Technological Educational Institute of Patras. As a Social Worker, he has been engaged in fieldwork projects related to homelessness, migration, community work as well as mental health units. As a professional, he has also participated in Crisis Intervention missions in Ukraine, Turkey, Mati, and Northern Evia area in Greece. He has also been involved in research regarding mental health, homelessness, community social work and crisis interventions.
https://sw.uniwa.gr/en/profile/efstathiou-ippokratis/
Prof. Dr. Melinda Madew, Chair Country Representative Committee
University of Applied Sciences Ludwigsburg, Germany
Melinda Madew is Professor of International Social Work, at the University of Applied Sciences
Ludwigsburg, Germany. She has years of experience working with international aid organizations in Asia, Africa
and
Europe as social development consultant. She has done fulltime teaching in countries such as the Republic of
Fiji,
Philippines and Germany and enjoys doing guest lectureships in various European universities. She has
conceptualized
and led inter-university projects funded by the European Union including joint degree programs and curriculum
development initiatives. Her teaching and research is in postcolonial social work. She currently serves as
external
examiner in development studies for the graduate school program of the University of South Africa in Pretoria.
She
is a research associate in gender and postcolonial studies at the University of Johannesburg.
Elena Cabiati
Relational social work research group, Department of Sociology, Catholic University of Milan, Italy
I’m a researcher and my main research interests are: Intercultural social work, Social work education
and
Child protection. I completed my Phd in 2014 with a doctoral thesis about child protection social workers.
From
the beginning of my academic pathway I’ve participated in national and internal research projects, including
teaching periods abroad. At the moment I am teaching Methodology of social work and Intercultural social
work at
the bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in social work programs at the Catholic University in Milan. I’m a
social worker with more than 10 years’ experience in Child protection services, both as practitioner and
manager. I’ve published several articles in international social work journals.
Assoc. Prof. Ozan Selçuk
Faculty Member in Social Work, Recep Tayyip Erdogan University, Rize
As a dedicated faculty member of Social Work at Recep Tayyip Erdogan University in Rize, Turkey, I was born in
Trabzon in 1985 and graduated from the University of Turin with an MA and Hacettepe University with a PhD
focusing on restorative justice and school social work. My research covers important areas such as social work
education, migration, social work research, child protection and school social work. As an educator, I am
passionate about teaching school social work, social work ethics, children's rights and welfare, and the history
of childhood. Internationally, I actively contribute to the academic community by acting as the university's
representative for international affairs, attending conferences and holding positions in networks such as
EURORESO and the European Social Work Research Association. With more than a decade of experience, I excel in
grant writing, project management and administrative tasks. As the Editor of the Turkish Journal of Social Work
Research and the President of the Association of Humanitarian and Social Research and the board member of the
Association of Schools of Social Work in Turkiye, I contribute my expertise to social work practice and
research.
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Vaida Aleknavičienė, Doctoral Board member
PhD student at the University of Lapland, Finland
Lecturer at Mykolas Romeris University, Lithuania.
I am engaged in the research field of social work with children and youth, social workers challenges and changes, how social work is affected by different crisis (COVID-19, war in Ukraine, work with refugees from Ukraine, etc).
I am a lecturer at Mykolas Romeris University, Lithuania where I give lectures on social projects and programs for international ERASMUS students and Lithuanian students. I have got the certificate of PRINCE2 Foundation, and I work with international project in educational and social sector. Languages: English, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese.
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Caroline Bald
University of Essex in the UK
Caroline Bald is a lecturer in Social Work at the University of Essex in the UK. She is co-convenor of the ESWRA Social Work, Crime and Criminal Justice SIG as well as co-chair of the British Association for Social Workers (BASW) Criminal Justice Group. Her research interests lie in initial social work education admissions and curricula, specifically inclusion and human rights. She sits on the boards of Essex Human Rights Centre and Social Work Education, the international journal. Her current funded research concerns brain injury social work and lived experience in multi-disciplinary education. She was recently asked to chair the charity, Brain Injury Social Work Group (BISWG).
Profile link: https://www.essex.ac.uk/people/BALDC96308/Caroline-Bald/
Michelle van der Tier
Teacher at the Master Social Work
University of Applied Sciences HAN, the Netherlands
Profile link: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Michelle-Van-Der-Tier
Dr. Jolita Buzaitytė Kašalynienė
Jolita Buzaitytė Kašalynienė is an associate professor in the Department of Social Work and Social Welfare at
the Institute of Sociology and Social Work, Faculty of Philosophy, Vilnius University. Her research interests
focus on the institutionalization of the social work profession in post-communist societies, as well as the
dynamics of authority and power, participation, and youth studies. Recently, she has been investigating the
nature of the relationship between youth workers and young people, youth delinquency, and how society and
professional systems respond to this issue.
Jolita has participated in various national and international projects, including EQUAL, ERASMUS, and National
Research programs. She was a member of the steering committee for the Nordic-Baltic Social Work Doctoral Studies
Network and chaired the local committee for the ECSWR 2024 conference. She serves as the chair of the Social
Work Bachelor Study Committee and the Dispute Settlement Committee of Philosophy Faculty. She is also a
co-founder and board member of the Lithuanian Group Relations Society. She organizes and directs annual
international Group Relations Conferences. Furthermore, she is a member of Lithuanian Scouting.
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Prof. Stefan Sjöström
Stefan Sjöström is the first professor in Social Work at Uppsala University with broad
research experience into fields such as mental health, sexual violence, coercive interventions,
service user organizations and media management in social service organizations. He
received his PhD in communication studies at Linköping University and has subsequently
held positions at the universities in Umeå and Luleå. He has been visiting academic for
extended periods at Auckland University of technology (2004-5), University of Auckland
(2015) and Oxford University (2025)
Sjöström has served on the board for the Swedish Association for Social Work Research
(FORSA) and has held editorial roles for the Nordic Journal of Social Work (NSA) and he
Swedish Journal of Social Sciences (SVT). He has also served as a trustee member of the
social service board in the Municipality of Umeå.
Jon Symonds
Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Bristol, UK
I am a Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Bristol where I teach on undergraduate and
postgraduate programmes in Social Work and Childhood Studies. My research interests include supporting families
where there are concerns about children’s welfare, engaging and working with fathers for the welfare of their
children, and developing practitioner skills in communication. I have collaborated on research focused on
engaging fathers to parenting programmes, fathers with learning disabilities, the wellbeing of children in care
and assessment practices in adult social care. I have been a member of ESWRA since 2014 and was a doctoral
member of the Board from 2014 – 2016 before joining the Board again in 2018 as a general member.
More information HERE.
Dr. Lorena Valencia Gálvez
Professor Elaine Sharland
Prof. Dr. Gisela Hauss
