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Biography
Siobhan worked as a welfare rights adviser and a residential care worker for young people before qualifying. She obtained her Post-Graduate Diploma in Social Work in 1994 training in mental health and child protection. She has worked in Adult Social Care, assisting people with physical disabilities and mental health needs. Siobhan also holds a M.Sc. in Guidance & Counselling awarded in 1997 and has practiced as a counsellor in the voluntary sector. .
In 1997 Siobhan took up an academic appointment at the University of Ghana, where she became Head of Social Work. On her return to the United Kingdom in 2000 she completed a Ph.D. in Social Development at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. She lectured at the University of Sheffield for several years where she obtained her Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning in 2007 before taking up an academic appointment at the University of Nottingham in 2008. Siobhan has published widely on child protection in an international context and has written several books on cultural competence in social work practice. Based on an analysis of Child Safeguarding Practice Reviews, she produced a book which investigated the management of conflict and resistance in child protection practice.
Based on her research Siobhan recently created an e-learning CPD on working with cultural diversity in safeguarding children together with Dr. Cath Williams. This e-learning module is being rolled out by some Social Work Teaching Partnerships to their Children's Social Care practitioners.
Siobhan is a registered social worker and the safeguarding lead on the Board of Trustees for a large Wildlife organisation working with children and adults to deliver programmes around nature connection, green prescribing and mental health improvement. In 2021 she was appointed as the external examiner at Queen's University Belfast for their post-qualifying M.Sc. in Social Work with Children, Young People and Families. Siobhan also sits on the Environmental Sustainability sub-Committee of the Executive Board of the University of Nottingham and various related working groups.
PhD Supervision
Siobhan supervises international and home doctoral students researching on a wide range of subject areas including: the care needs of older people in Thailand; young care leavers in China; care leavers and education in the UK and climate related disaster management in Oman. She is interested in potential PhD applicants focussing on: cross-cultural aspects of health or social care; the impacts of climate change on mental and physical health; and child protection social work. She is also keen to support doctoral students researching on conflict within families and between professionals and family members.
ORCID ID 0000-0002-1918-7585
Expertise Summary
During her work in Ghana, Siobhan acted as consultant to the Danish Embassy on welfare provision for street children. She continues to research and publish on child welfare and protection in the sub-Saharan region. She has led a project to conduct a national survey of the views and experiences of children in care on behalf of the Office of the Children's Commissioner in the UK. Siobhan was a member of the International Relations Advisory Panel of the British Association of Social Workers and the JUCSWEC International Sub-committee.She continues to be engaged in research concerning cross-cultural social work and managing conflict in child protection practice.
Research Summary
Dr. Laird's study of serious case reviews reveals the extent to which conflict between social workers and family members can detrimentally affect child protection practice. She continues to conduct… read more
Current Research
Dr. Laird's study of serious case reviews reveals the extent to which conflict between social workers and family members can detrimentally affect child protection practice. She continues to conduct work to identify the salient features of conflict and resistance in the interactions between professionals and parents during child protection interventions and to design conflict management strategies. She also has a research focus on social work in cross-cultural contexts, particularly in relation to child protection. This has included finding out from black and minority ethnic communities how they might best be engaged in user-led projects or as research participants. In addition, Dr. Laird's research examines dominant social constructions of childhood through the ethnocentric assumptions embedded in the approaches of multilateral organizations to child welfare policy in developing countries. Her research interrogates the contradictions created for social work practice in African countries when national child protection laws and policies reflect Anglo-centric norms. Currently Dr. Laird is undertaking a series of evaluations of child protection practices introduced by a number of local authorities in England.