Prof. Elaine Sharland, ESWRA Co-Chair
Professor of Social Work Research at the University of Sussex, UK
Dr. Jon Symonds, ESWRA Co-Chair
Senior Lecturer in Social Work with Children and Families, School for Policy Studies, 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.
Ippokratis Efstathiou, ESWRA Vice-Chair
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 West Attica, Greece. He holds an MSc in Social Discrimination, Migration and Citizenship and a degree in Social Work from the University of Patras (formerly TEI of Patras). His doctoral research examines pathways out of homelessness in Greece and the role of social workers in reintegration processes, drawing on structural approaches to homelessness and critical social work theory. Alongside his academic work, he serves as Head of Community Services at IASIS NGO, coordinating fieldwork in homelessness, mental health and community-based interventions. He has participated in crisis intervention missions in Ukraine, Armenia, Türkiye and in several disaster-affected areas in Greece, such as Northern Evia, Mati and Thessalia and he has contributed to research on homelessness, mental health, community social work and crisis response. He also undertakes peer-review work for academic journals in the field.
Dr María Inés Martínez-Herrero, ESWRA Secretary
Senior lecturer, 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.
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.
Lorena Valencia Gálvez, Chair of Member Services and Research Resources
Committee
Associate Professor, Department of Social Work, University of Barcelona, Spain
Caroline Bald, Chair of Special Interest Group Development Committee
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).
Melissa Irvine, PhD Student Co-chair of PhD & Early Career SIG
Queen's University Belfast, UK
Melissa Irvine is a PhD candidate in the School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work at Queen's University Belfast. Her doctoral research centres on support structures for care experienced young mothers in Northern Ireland, bringing together her deep commitment to social justice with rigorous academic inquiry. Melissa holds a degree in Social Work and brings direct practice experience to her research, having worked as a qualified social worker. This professional background grounds her academia in the realities faced by some of society's most marginalised young people and informs a research approach that is both critically informed and practice relevant.
Her research interests sit at the intersection of children's rights and transitions from care. She is particularly interested with experiences of young people who are affected by child sexual exploitation and teenage pregnancy, areas where policy, practice and lived experience frequently diverge. Melissa is committed to amplifying the voices of care experienced young people in research and policy and to challenging the systemic inequalities that shape their lives. Melissa is a passionate advocate for trauma-informed, rights-based approaches across social work and is actively engaged in conversations around policy reform in Northern Ireland and beyond. She welcomes connections with researchers, practitioners, and organisations working in the fields of care experience, child welfare and young people's rights.
Stephen Bahooshy, PhD Student Co-chair of PhD & Early Career SIG
PhD Candidate, School of Health, Sciences and Society, University of Suffolk & Strategic Commissioner, Adults & Health, Camden Council
Stephen is a part-time PhD candidate at the University of Suffolk, UK, currently writing up his findings on unpaid carers, gender and decision-making in adult social care. In addition to this, Stephen works in local government designing and commissioning adult social care services and supports the national regulatory body in providing assurance in local government adult social care inspections.
In 2025 Stephen undertook a National Institute for Health and Care Research funded placement through the Applied Research Collaboration North Thames – University College London, where he took a participatory approach to undertake a scoping review LGBTQIA+ people’s experiences and perceptions of homecare services and applied this to a central London context. He has written extensively outside of academia on the importance of engaging and working with residents and carers to design, commission and deliver services, and finding approaches that support people to feel empowered and to be involved in decisions about services that may impact them. Once he’s completed his PhD, Stephen aims to continue working in local government adult social care with a view of better aligning academia with social care practice, supporting homecare services to be relational, improve cultural humility and be trauma informed.
Assoc. Prof. Ozan Selçuk, Chair of External Relations
Faculty Member in Social Work, Recep Tayyip Erdogan University, Rize, Turkey
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.
Michelle van der Tier, Treasurer Support
Teacher at the Master Social Work, University of Applied Sciences HAN, the Netherlands
Dr. Jolita Buzaitytė Kašalynienė, Chair of Country Representative
Committee
Associate Professor, Department of Social Work and Social Welfare, Institute of Sociology and Social Work, Faculty of Philosophy, Vilnius University, Lithuania
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.
Prof. Stefan Sjöström, Chair of Awards Committee
Department of Social Work, Uppsala University, Sweden
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.
Gisela Hauss, Chair of Nominations & Elections Committee
FHNW School of Social Work
Mieke Schrooten, Board Member / Committee Chair
Associate Professor of Social Work at Odisee University of Applied Sciences and the University of Antwerp, Belgium
Mieke Schrooten is Associate Professor of Social Work at Odisee University of Applied Sciences and the University of Antwerp. She holds a BA in Social Work and an MA and PhD in Social and Cultural Anthropology. Her research expertise focuses on migration and social work, with particular attention to transnational social work, migration governance, and the role of civil society in welfare provision. Her work bridges empirical research and social work practice, with a strong commitment to socially engaged and policy-relevant scholarship.
Prof. Gary Spolander, Board Member / Committee Chair
Professor of Social Work, School of Law and Social Science, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, UK
Prof. Nuzha Allassad Alhuzail, Board Member / Committee Chair
Senior Faculty Member, School of Social Work, Sapir Academic College | Head, National Knowledge and Research Centre for the Study of Bedouin Society | Chair, Committee for Promoting Equity and Access in Higher Education
