BACKGROUND: Judy’s skill in creating learning organisations is rooted in her experience as a social work practitioner and training manager in an inner London social services department. She enhanced her understanding by completing the advanced course on consulting to organisations and groups at the Tavistock Centre and by leading national training initiatives in looked after children, service user involvement, mental health and mentoring. She established the Social Perspectives Network across England which provides reflective space in its study days for mental health service providers and service users to think and campaign together. She is a member of its off-shoot - the Parental Mental Health and Child Welfare Network. RESEARCH
Judy is particularly interested in our ability to think at work – the subject of her doctorate. What gets in the way of our thinking? Strong emotions, the working environment, overload? In this recent research she examines the preoccupations of social workers during the working day. Using psychodynamic, organisational and management insights, she identifies five enabling factors that influence our ability to think on the front line, most important of which is ‘mental space’.
CURRENT
She is a visiting lecturer on several social work programmes at the Tavistock Centre. Using the evidence from her research, Judy facilitates management groups and teams to improve creativity and performance. She is chair of St Michael’s Fellowship which keeps her in touch with imaginative schemes to support young parents in the inner city and a trustee of Southwark Diocesan Welcare.
