Social Work and Community Studies staff

David Childs

Head of the College of Education and Social Work

David qualified in Social Work in 2007, he began working with adults with Intellectual Disabilities and Mental illness within Birmingham. As a Social Worker within Birmingham David worked within Safeguarding, the Court of Protection and was awarded for partnership working within the Local Authority. Most recently he was...

Birgit Forster

Lecturer

Birgit is originally from Germany, where she graduated as a social worker in 2001. She gained her first social work experience in Germany working with non-profit organizations mainly in the field of migration and asylum seekers. In 2005 Birgit moved to the UK and has since worked as a socia worker with children and families...

Rebecca Govan

Assistant Lecturer

Rebecca has worked with people all of her adult life either as a volunteer, support worker or social worker. Rebecca’s focus has been social work with adults and particularly older people with experience in mental capacity, safeguarding and joint working with health colleagues. More recently having become an adopter and...

Simon Hall

Senior Lecturer

Simon qualified as a social worker in 1995 and has worked as a practitioner and manager in most adult service user groups. He has also managed post qualifying social work training provision within a local authority for a number of years. Simon has particular interests in advocating for service users and especially in working...

Gero Kaur

Senior Lecturer

Gero qualified as a Social Worker in 2000. Upon qualifying as a Social Worker Gero worked within a Local Authority generic adult team. She started supervising social work students on placement when she became a Senior Practitioner in 2002. In 2005 Gero gained employment as a Practice Educator within a Local Authority...

Caroline Lee

Associate Professor and Subject Lead for Social Work

Caroline worked as a social work practitioner in a community setting for a number of years with a range of adult service user groups, primarily within the fields of learning disabilities and mental health. Caroline joined BCU as a full-time social work lecturer in Sept 2006, and teaches across a variety of modules as well as...

Fungisai Mushawa

Senior Lecturer

Fungisai qualified as a social worker in 1990 and has worked as a social worker in generic, rehabilitation, hospice and local authority settings. Fungisai has worked as a Child Protection Social Worker, Fostering Social Worker, Independent Social Worker and as a Team Manager in these settings. She has also worked as an...

Inderjit Patel

Senior Lecturer/Programme Director

Inderjit has delivered teaching and learning across a range of modules on professional social work programmes including Social Work Theory and Method, Law, Values and Ethics, Sociology, Child Protection, Mental Health and Inter professional practice during the last 10 years as a Senior Lecturer in Social Work. She has also...

Dr Peter Simcock

Associate Professor of Social Work

Peter began working in social work education in 2010 and joined the Department of Social Work at BCU in January 2018. Prior to working in academia, Peter worked for Age Concern, Hull, before moving to the West Midlands and from 2001 to 2008 worked for Wolverhampton City Council in various social work roles including social...

Dr. Val Sylvester

Senior Lecturer/SWPET Programme Lead

Val has been working with Birmingham City University since 1995. She is currently a Senior Lecturer/Deputy Director of the BSc (Hons) Social Work programme and Programme Director for the Postgraduate Social Work Practice Educator training programme. Previous experience: Shelter National Organisation (1977-81) Val worked...