Dr. Liz Frost

Dr Liz Frost, DPhil, is Associate Professor of Social Work at the University of the West of England, Bristol. She is a member of the Executive Committee of the European Social Work Research Association, and Co-editor of The Journal for Psychosocial Studies. She is the director of a post-graduate social work programme. Her current research is focused on social workers’ well being, with a particular focus on how they thrive in child and family social work.  Starting from a particular interest in the impact of shame and recognition in social work, and a pilot project with Italy and Sweden looking at how child protection social workers stay in these very demanding jobs, she has undertaken research, training and publication in this area. In 2021 she delivered a series of workshops with Associate Professor Alessandro Sicora from Trento University, to look at strong emotions with practitioners. With colleagues from Germany and Austria, Sicora and Frost also edited a European collection of social work writings on shame. In England, she has collaborated with ‘Community Care Education’ since an initial pilot project in 2017, to analyse how child and family social workers thrive, and why they leave. This now extensive, and still growing, data base forms much of the basis of her workshops, presentations, and publication on thriving in social work.

Liz Frost’s keynote address at the SWIC 2023 conference will be titled ‘Thriving in social work practice: all for one and one for all’.