Rosamund Thorpe

Prof Ros Thorpe is Emeritus Professor of Social Work at James Cook University, and, since her retirement at the end of 2010, she is President of and a volunteer community social worker with The Family Inclusion Network, a service user support and advocacy organisation in which families and supportive professionals work together to achieve greater social justice for children and families caught up in the child protection system.

Ros qualified as a social worker in 1967 in the UK, and migrated to Australia in 1978. She has had significant practice experience in family casework and group-work in child welfare and has an international reputation for her research with children in out-of-home care, their parents, and their foster carers.

Ros’ research and practice activities also include the fields of domestic and family violence, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander approaches to social welfare practice, community work, service user involvement in human services and counter-oppressive approaches to social work.