Profile - Dr Elaine Sharland
Dr Elaine Sharland
Senior Lecturer
Department of Social Work and Social Care
Essex House
University of Sussex
Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QQ
United Kingdom
Email: E.Sharland@sussex.ac.uk
Profile Publications
Profile:
Elaine Sharland (PhD) is a Senior Lecturer and Director of Post-Graduate Research in Social Work and Social Care at the University of Sussex, where she has worked since 2001. Prior to arriving at Sussex, Elaine was Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Southampton; she held Research Fellowships at the Universities of London and Oxford. She was originally a historian, whose interest in changing patterns and conceptualisations of childhood, family and welfare took her eventually into contemporary times, preoccupations and practices. Though never a qualified or practising social worker, much of Elaine’s work has work has informed and influenced both policy and practice in that field.
Elaine has 14 years’ experience of teaching within social work, in broader social sciences, and in interdisciplinary and interprofessional contexts. For many years, her primary areas of substantive teaching expertise were, first, professional practice with children and families, child welfare and abuse, and second, research epistemologies, methodologies and methods. In recent years, there has been a greater shift towards the latter, with much of Elaine’s teaching activity focused on enabling undergraduate and graduate students to develop as research literate and researching practitioners.
Elaine has taken lead responsibility within her institution for directing post graduate research programmes; she established the interdisciplinary Professional Doctorate in Social Work (DSW) at the University of Sussex, recognised to be one of the most successful of its kind.
In the 1980s and early 1990s Elaine’s research on child abuse was part of a highly influential government funded research programme which led to profound changes in UK law and policy regarding child protection and child welfare. Further research studies extended the child welfare focus to include the impacts of both family breakdown and structural inequalities on children’s experiences, development and outcomes.
More recent work has shifted in focus from children to young people and risk, with less emphasis on empirical enquiry and more on the application of social, psychological and cultural theories to a ‘problem’ well recognised within the research literature but little addressed in professional social work practice. Elaine is currently co-convenor of the British Sociological Association Risk Special Interest Group. She is also currently co-editor of a Special Issue of the British Journal of Social Work, focusing on new perspectives on risk in social work, due for publication in early 2010.
In 2006 Elaine was appointed Director of the Sussex University Registered Provider of Knowledge Reviews for the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) in England. This is a government funded but independent body, with primary responsibility for promoting knowledge transfer and exchange in social work and social care. In this role, Elaine has worked at the forefront of developing systematic review methodologies (designed originally for application in medicine and allied fields using positivist methodological paradigms) to enhance their suitability for review of paradigmatically hybrid social work and social care research. Projects undertaken as part of the Registered Provider work have primarily focused on the nature, quality and challenges of professional and interprofessional education in contemporary contexts, also allowing Elaine to take a leadership role in developing research agendas for the European Interprofessional Education Network (EIPEN).
Most recently, Elaine was appointed by the ESRC as Strategic Advisor for Social Work and Social Care Research, commencing September 2008. This high-profile role entails developing and leading, in consultation with a wide range of stakeholders, a UK-wide initiative to promote a step-change in both the quality of social work and social care research, and in the capacity and capability of the research and practice communities to produce it. The role has grown out of a series of recent initiatives to raise the status of social work and social care as research and practice based disciplines, and address current shortfalls in focus, quality, capacity and investment. Notable among these initiatives has been the work of the UK Joint University Council Social Work Education Committee (JUCSWEC) to develop, in 2006, A Social Work Research Strategy in Higher Education 2006-2020. Elaine is now Vice Chair of the JUCSWEC Research Committee, a role that will be complemented by her work with the ESRC to take further strategic developments to advance the research field.
Sharland, Elaine (2011) All together now? Building disciplinary and interdisciplinary research capacity in social work and social care. British Journal of Social Work, Advanc.
Warner, Joanne and Sharland, Elaine (2010) Editorial: Risk and Social Work: Critical Perspectives. British Journal of Social Work, 40 (4). pp. 1035-1045. ISSN 0045-3102
Sharland, Elaine (2010) Strategic Adviser for Social Work and Social Care Research Main Report to the ESRC Training and Development Board. Economic and Social Research Council.
Sharland, Elaine (2009) Strategic Adviser for Social Work and Social Care Research Summary Report to the ESRC Training and Development Board. Unset.
Taylor, Imogen, Whiting, Russell Lewis and Sharland, Elaine (2008) Integrated Children's Services in Higher Education (UCS-HE): Preparing Tommorrow's Professionals, Knowledge Review. Higher Education Academy, Subject Centre for Social Policy and Social Work (SWAP), Southampton. ISBN 9780854328888 http://icshe.escalate.ac.uk/1458
Sharland, Elaine and Taylor, Imogen (2006) Social care research: a suitable case for systematic review? Evidence and Policy, 2 (4). pp. 503-523. ISSN 1744-2648
Sharland, E., and Taylor, I. (2007) Interprofessional Education in Qualifying Social Work. Research Review for SCIE. http://www.scie.org.uk/publications/misc/ipe.asp
Monck, E., Bentovim, A., Goodall, G., Lwin, R., Sharland, E. (1996) Child Sexual Abuse: A Descriptive and Treatment Study. London, HMSO.
Sharland, E. (2006) ‘Young people, risk taking and risk making: some thoughts for social work’, British Journal of Social Work, 36(2), pp.247-265.
Sharland, E. (1999) ‘Justice for children? Child protection and the crimino-legal process’. Child and Family Social Work, 4(4), pp. 303-313.
Sharland, E. (1999) ‘Child protection and children’s welfare: complementary priorities?’, in Bagley, C. and Mallick, K. (eds.) Child Sexual Abuse and Adult Offenders: New Theory and Research. Aldershot, Ashgate.
Sharland, E., Seal, H., Croucher, M., Aldgate, J. and Jones, D. (1996) Professional Interventions in Child Sexual Abuse. London, HMSO.
Sharland, E., and Taylor, I. (2007) Interprofessional Education in Qualifying Social Work. Research Review for SCIE. http://www.scie.org.uk/publications/misc/ipe.asp
Sharland, E. and Taylor, I. (2006) ‘Social care research: a suitable case for systematic review?’. Evidence and Policy, 2(4), pp.503-523.
Smith, T., Noble, M., with Barlow, J., Sharland, E. and Smith, G. (1995) Education Divides: Poverty and Schooling in the 1990s. London, Child Poverty Action Group.
Smith, T., Noble, M., with Barlow, J., Sharland, E. and Smith, G. (1995) Education Divides: Poverty and Schooling in the 1990s. London, Child Poverty Action Group.
Taylor, I., Sharland, E., Sebba, J. and LeRiche, P. (2006) Learning, Teaching and Assessment of Partnership Work in Social Work Education. London, SCIE.
Taylor, I., Whiting, R. and Sharland, E. (2008) Integrated Children’s Services in Higher Education (ICS-HE): Preparing Tomorrow’s Professionals, Knowledge Review. London, Higher Education Academy. http://icshe.escalate.ac.uk/1458
Urwin, C. and Sharland, E. (1992) ‘From bodies to minds in childcare literature: Advice to parents in inter-war Britain’, in R. Cooter (ed.) In the Name of the Child: Health and Welfare, 1880-1940. London/New York, Routledge.