Professor Aidan Worsley
Aidan is a Professor of Social Work in the School. He is actively involved in a range of ongoing research projects linked to practitioner research and research engagement work with underrepresented communities. He teaches across a range of programmes in the School, mostly around research methods. He also provides supervision to a range of research projects and currently supervises eight PhD student. From 2021-24 Aidan was the National Institute for Health Research Speciality Lead for Social Care on the North West Coast. In October 2024, Aidan took up a role as Research Manager for Social Work England which he combines with his work at UCLan.
Aidan has published extensively around social work regulation in recent years, examining particularly elements of the Fitness to Practice regimes and professionals’ experiences of them. He obtained his PhD by Publication on that topic in 2023 with a thesis entitled ‘Rethinking the Regulation of Social Work: Changes, Challenges and Choices. He has a range of over two dozen publications in peer reviewed journals and has published a number of books on research methods and general social work texts.
Aidan is a highly experienced social work manager and academic with a range of experiences in senior roles. He has held a number of national roles in relation to the social work profession. From 2001-4 he was Chair of the National Organisation for Practice Teaching. From 2012-2015 he was President of the Association of Professors of Social Work, during this period he also chaired the College of Social Work national endorsement panel. In 2018 he was seconded into the Department for Education to develop policy options for the incoming social work regulator. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and of the Royal Society of Arts.
- Ph.D. (by Publication) Rethinking the Regulation of Social Work UCLan, 2023
- MPhil Probation as Profession, University of Manchester, 2004
- MA Social Work, University of East Anglia, 1987
- BA Social Science & Administration, London School of Economics and Political Science, 1983
- Fellow HEA 2008
- Social work education
- Social work regulation
- Research methods
- Fellow RSA 2014
- Inspector Social Work (2020-2024)
- External Assessor Open University
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- People with severe disabilities and their experiences of universal credit
- BAMME staff and their experiences of research careers
- Formative spaces and professional regulation
Telephone:+44 (0)1722 892514
Email: Email:Professor Aidan Worsley
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