I am a Senior Lecturer in Social Work and the Course Lead for the MSc Social Work.  I also co-lead the Department of Law and Criminology's Health and Social Care research cluster.  Before joining Royal Holloway in 2015, I practiced as a social worker 2002-2017 (part time 2015-17) in children's services, adult social care, the NHS and homelessness services in both Dublin and London and I continue to volunteer weekly at a homelessness charity. I am qualified as a Best Interests Assessor and Practice Educator.  

My research and teaching interests include adult social care and safeguarding policy and practice, particularly in relation to people who are homeless. My teaching runs across our BSc Social Science, MSc Social Work and MSc Advanced Practice.  In 2023/24 I will teach predominantly on the following modules: SW3013 Housing and Homelessness: Perspectives, Policy and Practice; SW5022 Law and Policy for Social Workers; HC5915 Working with Complexity & Safeguarding: Advanced Practice with Adults. 

I recently concluded a consultancy project relating to Discriminatory Abuse in partnership with the Partners in Care and Health Programme in the Local Government Association and the charity Research in Practice.  I am currently working on a project to scale up this work on discriminatory abuse with colleagues Dr. Jane Healy and Ros Dray from Criminology and Social Work at University of Bournemouth.  I am also currently working on a British Academy-funded research project on the Inherent Jurisdiction of the High Court in Safeguarding Adults practice alongside Dr. Philip Bremner from Law at RHUL and Dr. Daniel Bedford from Law at University of Portsmouth.  My ongoing PhD study relates to the perspectives of people who are homeless in relation to their care and support needs and how these are met. 

I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and an external examiner for social work programmes at Leeds Beckett University and the University of Hull.  I am a member of the Advisory Group on Discriminatory Abuse hosted by the Local Government Association's Care and Health Improvement Programme.  I joined the editorial board for the journal 'Practice: Social Work in Action' in April 2023.  I am also on the Organising Committee for the International Sexuality and Social Work Conference (for conferences in 2022, 2023 and 2025).  I am currently undertaking two consultancy projects: firstly co-chairing a Safeguarding Adult Review for an English local authority with Dr. Adi Cooper, OBE and secondly scoping how multiple exclusion homelessness is addressed in social work education with Jess Harris at the Health and Social Care Workforce Research Unit at King's College London.