Tania Hopley

Biography

I graduated from my first degree in 1999. While studying I worked for Victim Support, providing help and support for survivors and victims of crime. After graduating I worked as a family support worker providing parenting assessments for the local authority child protection team.

During my Masters in Social Work my placements included working for MIND in a community project. My second placemernt was in a parent and child assessment unit. These included young people from deprived environments and those at risk becoming gang members for the 2 violent gangs in Birmingham.

On qualifying I worked as a child protection social worker for Sandwell local authority for 2 years. This has provided me with a wealth of experience in all aspects  of child protection work with families.

In 2008 I moved to Carlisle and worked as a fostering social worker. After restructure I worked as an assessing social work. During this time I was a practice educator for social work students.  During this time I specialised in doing complex kinship care assessments.

I commenced employment with UoC in February 2016 a as lecturer in social work. I teach a variety of modules both at BA and MA level. In July 2017 I completed the PgC in higher education.

I am a White Ribbon Champion for the university and also sit on the EDI for the university. Outside of the univeristy I advise for the Woman Up charity.

My specialisms are child protection, refugees, global issues, anti-discrimination and anti-oppression. Social Justice for people is a passion.

I have managed multi-professinal modules at the university, where the module ran over 3 sites with over 300 students

I have managed recruitment, marketing and admissions for many years.

Qualifications and memberships

Degree in social policy and sociology, graduated in 1999

Masters degree in social work graduated 2003

Post Qualifying module Practice Education

PgC for Higher Education graduating 2017

Member of Social Work England

White Ribbon Champion.

Member of the Working Class higher education lecturers.

Academic and research interests

For my degree I researched the link between domestic abuse and child abuse. For this research I interviewed women's refuge agencies and the police. For my masters thesis I examined one of the findings from my degree dissertation. This was social workers responses to mothers in child protection cases when there is domestic abuse. This found that mothers were blamed for not protecting their children as they were expected to leave a violent partner. The complexities of domestic violence were not considered by social workers. I discussed the findings with my manager at Sandwell. As a result of this research I taught the service domestic violence and specialised in domestic violence.

For my PgC I have researched using Blackboard discussion boards as an academic tool for work based learners. The aim is to increase usage in discussion boards by using it as a learning envirnment with problem-based activities.

Due to the wealth of expereince in working with kinship carers, I have researched this area to present as an enhancement.

My main academic interests are child protection in social work.

I have conducted some research on the experience of refugess living in rural areas in a global contest. In 6 countries the same issues arose, lack of accesss to services, such as language classes, mental health services and working in poorly paid seasonal work. 

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