Welcome to the 2008 Linda Haskell Memorial Master Class. This year, we will be hosting Professor Nigel Parton, whose work in the area of child welfare has earned him an appointment as the Foundation National Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Children Chair at the University of Huddesfield.

Recent years have witnessed the emergence of an important debate about whether and how far social work practice with children and families is being dominated by a relatively narrow and often legalistic focus on child protection, at the cost of the more traditional and broader concern on ensuring the welfare of all children. Arizona has not been immune to these criticisms, and we often hear about initiatives attempting to balance these two concerns.  "Family support" is often the operative used child welfare focus, but scholars in the field still wonder whether our new technologically based systems can accommodate broader concerns. Perhaps the centrality of procedures has overshadowed what social work practitioners used to value as good judgment, including a laborious weighing of facts and practice wisdom.

Professor Parton’s lecture will discuss the impact of the new information and communication technologies systems. He will also reflect on the shift from a narrative to a database way of thinking and operating, to an informational mode, and discuss how the “social” may have been overshadowed by the “informational”. In doing so, he will attempt to identify a number of key challenges which need to be considered in the future.

This promises to be a very timely and exciting lecture.  We do hope we will see you all on November 7th.

– Emilia E. Martinez-Brawley, EdD, MSS, ACSW
John F. Roatch Distinguished Professor
and Professor of Social Work

Nigel Parton is Foundation National Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Children chair in applied childhood studies at University of Huddersfield in England. He has been at Huddersfield since 1994, where he also directed the Centre of Applied Childhood Studies. In 1993, he was professor in child care studies at Keele University.

Over the years, he has taught courses in social work, health, and the behavioral sciences at the undergraduate and postgraduate, qualifying, and post-qualifying levels. His subjects cover general social policy; political contexts of social work and social care; social theory and social work; risk and social welfare; and child welfare and child protection.

Parton’s main research interests are the political dimensions of social work; changes in child care policy and practice; the politics and practice of child protection; the background and impact of the Children Act 2004; social theory, social constructionism and social work; and risk and social welfare.

He is the author of several books and many articles. Among his books are Child Sexual Abuse: Responding to the Experiences of Children, edited with Corinne Wattam (John Wiley, 1999); Constructive Social Work: Towards a New Practice, with Patrick O’Byrne (Palgrave/Macmillan, 2000); Safeguarding Childhood: Early Intervention and Surveillance in a Late Modern Society (Palgrave/Macmillan, 2006), and Constructive Work with Offenders, edited with K. Gorman, M. Gregory and M. Hayles (Jessica Kingsley, 2006).

He has been a member of numerous research advisory groups including the Global Partnership for Transformative Social Work, based at the University of Vermont. He is chair of the editorial board of Children and Society and is on the editorial board of eleven other national and international journals in the fields of child welfare and social work.

Fall 2007 Lecture
Synergies and tensions in child protection and parent support: Insights from the Italian case
Keynote Speaker: Silvia Fargion, PhD
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View the slideshow of photos from the 2007 lecture

Fall 2006 Lecture
The Status of Health Care for the Elderly in Arizona
Keynote Speaker: Leonard J. Kirschner, M.D., M.P.H.
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View the slideshow of photos from the 2006 lecture

Fall 2005 Lecture
Whose Children? The State of Child Welfare
Keynote Speaker: Richard Pugh
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View the slideshow of photos from the 2005 lecture

Fall 2004 Lecture Highlights
Services that Speak your Language: What kind of second language competency do social workers need? Experiences from Europe.
Keynote Speaker: Jacob Kornbeck
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Fall 2003 Lecture Highlights
Grandparents as Primary Caretakers of Children
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Fall 2002 Lecture Highlights
The Elderly Outside the Metropolis: Myths and Realities
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Fall 2001 Lecture Highlights
Working with Support Networks of People as They Age

Fall 2000 Lecture Highlights
Seniors and Health Care Issues: What's on the Horizon

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