Tēna tatou

Nō Ingarangi ahau

Ko Yorkshire tōku ūkaipō

I whānau mai ahau i Canada

I tūtaki ahau ki taku hoa tāne ki reira

Nō Aotearoa ia

E noho ana mātou ko tōku whānau Te Kawa

Ko Deb tōku ingoa

Tēnā koutou katoa

My family come from a small village in West Yorkshire, however I was born in Montreal, Canada, and lived most recently on the west coast of Canada before moving to Aotearoa New Zealand with my (kiwi) partner and children in 1998. I completed my BSW in Calgary, Alberta, and my initial social work experience was in family counselling and crisis intervention (Canada). I was a senior practitioner and supervisor at Child Youth and Family (NZ) over a period of six years and during this time completed a graduate diploma in supervision. In 2008 I began a private practice in the Waikato providing external supervision to a range of social care students, practitioners and managers; I also carried out training, group facilitation, research and social work assessment. I then practiced as a child protection social worker with Essex County Council (UK) before becoming a social work educator in 2011, teaching on the Bachelor of Social Work programme in the Centre for Health and Social Practice, Wintec (Hamilton, NZ) until 2019. I also facilitated supervision short courses and continued to work as an external supervisor. I have an interest in social work research and writing, and a passion for the relationship between social work and the media/social media, inspired in part by my work as a freelance magazine writer (1998- 2002), but mostly by my love of writing and reading. I completed a PhD in Social Work in 2019, and currently practice in a private capacity, as a professional supervisor, social work researcher and educator.

The supervision relationship is key to our development as strong, accountable, and critical professionals. It should stimulate excitement about our profession and enable us to work competently and with professional satisfaction in complex, fascinating and personally challenging jobs. The public deserves to be served by workers with a strong sense of identity who have an opportunity to reflect ethically and creatively on their daily work, and who have support in noticing and understanding the impact of their work – on themselves and their communities. Achievement of this as professionals can provide inspiration to the people we work alongside and opens a bigger space for social change.