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Dr Carolyn Taylor

Senior Lecturer in Social Work

Degree: BA (Hons) Sociology, MA Applied Social Studies, CQSW, PhD (University of Salford)

Associated research centres and groups: Child care, child protection and children in care, Child Welfare Research Unit CWRU, Health and Welfare Policy Analysis

Current Teaching

ASSC 420 Social and Legal Policy Contexts of Social Work (MA1)

Social Work with Children and Families - Developmental Psychology & Critiques

Dissertation supervision

Research Interests

Initially I studied modern languages but that didn't quite go to plan and I left after 2 terms and worked in Europe for a while. I then got fed up with boring jobs in nice locations and the terrible state of my finances and decided to come home and go back to university. I studied sociology and was no longer bored (quite the reverse) though my financial situation remained dire! After graduating I became a trainee social worker, going back to Warwick University to obtain my social work qualification and a Masters. I worked for several years as a local authority social worker and later a staff development officer, specialising in child & family social work. I also did a quite a lot of part-time tutoring for various voluntary organisations. I moved into social work education in the 1990s, working first on social work qualifying programmes at the University of Manchester and then on the Post Qualifying Child CareAward, MRes and DProf in Health & Social Care at the University of Salford. That brings me to the present - I joined the department in September 2007.

Research

I have two main areas of interest:

1. The study of the ways in which professional practice is enacted in health & welfare organisations. This involves treating talk and text as communicative practices (rather than as vehicles for the transmission of information about something else). I have published jointly in this area with Sue White and my recent and developing area of interest is in the production and use of documents in organisational cultures. A particular focus has been a study of narratives of reflective practice.

2. The historical study of social work and welfare organisations. I have conducted research into child health & welfare organisations in 19C and 20C Manchester and Salford and plan to extend this further as this can offer a counter balance to the tendency to focus on the metropolis and particular high-profile organisations such as the Charity Organisation Society.

Recent Publications

Taylor, C. and White, S. (2000) Practising Reflexivity in Health and Welfare: Making Knowledge. Buckingham, Open University Press.

Taylor, C. and White, S. (2001) 'Knowledge, Truth and Reflexivity: the Problem of Judgement', Journal of Social Work, 1(1): 37-59.

Taylor, C. and White, S. (2002) 'What works about what works? Fashion, fad and EBP', Social Work and Social Sciences Review, 10(1): 36-54.

Taylor, C. (2003) 'Narrating practice: reflective accounts and the textual construction of reality', Journal of Advanced Nursing, 42(3): 244-51.

Taylor, C. (2004) 'Underpinning knowledge for child care practice: reconsidering child development theory', Child and Family Social Work, 9: 225-235.

Taylor, C. and White,S. (2004) La practica della riflessività nelle professioni di aiuto: rifletttere su come ragioniamo i casi', Lavoro Sociale, 4(3): 307-326. (The practice of reflexivity in the helping professions: reflecting on how we conduct case reasoning)

Taylor, C. (2006) 'Narrating significant experience: reflective accounts and the production of (self) knowledge', British Journal of Social Work, 36(2); 189-206.

Taylor, C. (2006) Practising reflexivity: narrative, reflection and the moral order, in S. White, J. Fook and F. Gardner (eds) Critical Reflection in Health and Social Care. Maidenhead: Open University Press, pp. 73-88.

Taylor, C. and White, S. (2006) 'Knowledge and Reasoning in Social Work: Educating for Humane Judgement', British Journal of Social Work, 36(6): 937-54.

Taylor, C. (in press, 2008) 'Trafficking in facts: writing practices in social work', Qualitative Social Work.

Taylor, C. (in press, 2008) 'Humanitarian narrative: bodies and detail in late Victorian social work', British Journal of Social Work, accepted for publication in Special Edition to appear in July 2008.

Potential Doctoral Proposals

• Discourse and textual analyses of professional practice in health and welfare
• Child and family social work (past & present) especially in relation to assesment & decision-making and looked after children
• The history of social work and social welfare

Associated Keywords: Applied Social Science, Child abuse and neglect, Child care, Communities of practice, Conversation analysis, Discourse analysis, Ethnomethodology, Qualitative research methods, Social policy, Social work, Social work education, Welfare practices

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