Nigel Parton, Ph.D.

Professor in Applied Childhood Studies
Centre for Applied Childhood Studies
University of Huddersfield

Email: n.parton@hud.ac.uk
Web: http://www.hud.ac.uk/research/staff/profile/index.php?staffid=293
Phone: 01484 472761

Nigel Parton is a qualified and registered social worker and Professor in the School of Human and Health Sciences at the University of Huddersfield in northern England and Visiting Professor at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. Apart from a 10 month period in the early 1990s when he was Professor in Child Care Studies at the University of Keele, he has worked at the University of Huddersfield for over 30 years. From 1994 – 2006 he was Professor in Child Care and Director of the Centre for Applied Childhood Studies and led and co-ordinated social work research.

He is the author and co-author of 20 books and over 100 chapters and journal articles on the broad areas of child welfare, child protection and social work including (with Patrick O’Byrne) Constructive Social Work: Towards a New Practice (2000; Palgrave/Macmillan). His latest books are (co-edited with Neil Gilbert and Marit Skivenes) Child Protection Systems: International Trends and Orientations (2011; Oxford University Press) and (with Anne Stafford, Sharon Vincent and Connie Smith) Child Protection Systems in the United Kingdom: A Comparative Analysis (2011; Jessica Kingsley) He is currently working on a book with the provisional title of The Politics of Child Protection to be published by Palgrave/Macmillan in 2014.

He has a BA (Hons) in Applied Social Studies from the University of Bradford; and MA in Social Service Planning from the University of Essex and PhD from the University of Huddersfield.

He has particular interests in the theory and practice of social work and human services and the politics and policy of child welfare and child protection. All his work is located in a broad constructionist framework. He has been a member of the Global Partnership for Transformative Social Work since its establishment in the late 1990s.