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About the authors

Sally Richards

Sally Richards is a Lecturer in Social Work and Director of Post-graduate Research in the School of Health and Social Care at the University of Reading. She is a qualified and registered social worker and a former Probation Officer. Her research and publications have focused on older people in social and health care settings. She is particularly interested in communication between practitioners and older people, communication through life story and narrative and in spirituality and old age. Sally was co-author of a SCIE Knowledge Review on learning and teaching communication skills in social work education and a follow up journal article on ethical dilemmas encountered in teaching communication skills in the current practice context.

Michelle Lefevre

Michelle Lefevre is a Lecturer in Social Work and Social Care at the University of Sussex where she is the Director of Post-Qualifying Programmes for social work practice in Children's Services settings. She is also a qualified and registered social worker and Arts Psychotherapist, carrying out individual therapy with children and adults and undertaking expert witness assessments for the family courts. Her recent research has particularly focused on communication between children and their social workers. This has included a Knowledge Review for SCIE on how communication skills with children should best be taught to social workers, two follow-up journal articles for Child and Family Social Work and a SWAP-funded dissemination project. She has recently co-edited an anthology for BAAF on direct work with children and young people and is currently writing a book for the Policy Press on Communicating with Children and Young People.

Pam Trevithick

Pamela Trevithick is a Principal Lecturer and former Course Leader of the BSc in Social Work at the University of Gloucestershire. Since qualifying in 1980, she has worked in a variety of statutory and non statutory settings and is the author of the best-selling text Social Work Skills: A Practice Handbook. She is also the first co-author of a SCIE Knowledge Review on learning and teaching communication skills in social work education, co-editor of the journal Groupwork and on two editorial boards: Journal of Social Work Practice and Journal of Social Work Practice and Communities and Children Australia. Pamela regularly gives talks/presentations on social work knowledge and skills, particularly the importance of communication skills within social work.