Shorts Media

Social work and Toy Story 4 – Bowlby and Attachment

Paragraph Is Disney and Pixar telling a tale of about children in the care system and showing us how social work should be done? In doing so they provide us with a beautiful...

Churning the Soil, caring professions (health, teaching and social care) and Madonna.

agraph Last month I enjoyed the lecture of Durham University’s new social work lead Professor Carlene Firmin, on contextual safeguarding. I was particularly energized by the language of “spaces” and shifting the risk...

Language and Power in Social Work, a fresh perspective from the Philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein

Social work can be seen as an endeavour of attempting to grasp at another person’s reality. We assess people and families striving to be as faithful as possible. In this article I...

Thoughts on ‘Radical Perspectives On Mental Health’

I had the luxury of a spare Saturday yesterday (12th February 2022) that coincided with an online festival of presentations and discussion on all manner of things from philosophy to science, all the...

Motivational Interviewing – be like Columbo

Remember the television show Columbo starring Peter Falk? The fictional Columbo was a detective who solved murder mysteries – hugely popular in the 1970’s. Having recently used this analogy with a group...

Podcast Show Notes: Stephen talks to George Bull about risk in light of the murder of Arthur

Social Work Shorts (Episode 25): Insights #8 In the latest episode of the Social Work Podcast Insights series Stephen and George talk about risk in light of the murder of Arthur and...

Academic referencing: Durham’s Moon, Nuclear Weapons, Avengers and middle aged man returns to University.

After a 13 year break I have returned to University to complete an Education Masters at Sunderland. This week I have been writing my first essay and returned to the business of...

Student zone: Take note(s)… a skilful art!

What is at the root of academic success. As a lecturer in Social Work at Sunderland University I get to talk to, listen to, and observe students going about their business. I...