Staff Profiles

Modules taught

U48823 Mental health for Social Workers

U48899 Dissertation

Supervision

• ‘Psychological factors that are associated with resilience in social work students’. This project received department level funding, published in the British Journal of Social Work 2019.
• ‘BME project to understand the experiences of Black and minority ethnic social work students with the aim of improving the attainment of BME social work students’ collaboration by both students and academic staff.
• Culturally sensitive evidence-based teaching and practice, and social work research in order to both understand and promote psychological wellbeing in service-users and social workers themselves in Burundi and the UK.

Research grants and awards

• 2016 £6,500 secured to develop a research project on Building Resilience to Achieve Academic Success in Social Work Students using a Self Determination Theory approach.
• 2017 £3,000 for a project that examined Supporting black and minority ethnic students on their journey to academic success.
• 2019 £10,000 secured for an evaluation of Social Prescribing in Primary Care for Oxford and Cherwell District Council.
• 2019 £12,000 Global Challenges Research Fund project to develop the capacity for culturally sensitive evidence-based teaching and practice, and social work research in order to both understand and promote psychological wellbeing in service-users and social workers themselves in Burundi and the UK. To be developed over 2020.

Journal articles

• Bunce L, Lonsdale AJ, King N, Child J, Bennie R, 'Emotional intelligence and self-determined behaviour reduce psychological distress: Interactions with resilience in social work students in the UK'
  British Journal of Social Work 49 (8) (2019) pp.2092-2111
  ISSN: 0045-3102 eISSN: 1468-263X
  Abstract

  Social workers in the UK experience higher levels of burnout compared with other healthcare professionals, making it important to understand how they can develop resilience to protect themselves from psychological distress. The current study aimed to deepen our understanding of the psychological predictors of resilience, which include emotional intelligence, reflective ability, social competence, and empathy, using self-determination theory. This theory suggests that fulfilment of the psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness will support resilience and protect against distress. We expected these needs to explain additional variance in resilience and distress beyond other emotional and social competencies. Analysis of questionnaire data from 211 social work students in the UK provided partial support for these hypotheses. Autonomy, competence, and relatedness were significantly positively correlated with resilience, and hierarchical regression analysis revealed that they explained somewhat more variance in resilience than previous factors alone (p=.06). Autonomy, competence, and relatedness explained significantly more variance than previous factors alone in psychological distress, although only autonomy and competence correlated with less psychological distress. Unexpectedly, relatedness correlated with more psychological distress. Furthermore, resilience played a mediating role between key variables and psychological distress. Implications for supporting the development of resilience in social work students are discussed.
  

  Website 

Conference papers

• Bunce L, Childs J, Lonsdale A, King N, 'Building Academic Success and Resilience in Social Work Students: An Application of Self-Determination Theory'
  4 (5) (2017)
  Abstract A major concern for the Social Work profession concerns the frequency of burn-out and high turnover of staff. The characteristic of resilience has been identified as playing a crucial role in social workers’ ability to have a satisfying and successful career. Thus a critical role for social work education is to develop resilience in social work students. We currently need to know more about how to train resilient social workers who will also increase the academic standing of the profession. The specific aim of this research was to quantify characteristics that may contribute towards resilience and academic success among student social workers in order to mitigate against the problems of burn-out and low academic standing. These three characteristics were competence (effectiveness at mastering the environment), autonomy (sense of control and free will), and relatedness (interacting and connecting with others), as specified in Self-Determination Theory (SDT). When these three needs are satisfied, we experience higher degrees of motivation to succeed and wellbeing. Thus when these three needs are met in social work students, they have the potential to raise academic standards and promote wellbeing characteristics that contribute to the development of resilience. The current study tested the hypothesis that higher levels of autonomy, competence, and relatedness, as defined by SDT, will predict levels of academic success and resilience in social work students. Two hundred and ten social work students studying at a number of universities completed well-established questionnaires to assess autonomy, competence, and relatedness, level of academic performance and resilience (The Brief Resilience Scale). In this scale, students rated their agreement with items e.g., ‘I bounce back quickly after hard times’ and ‘I usually come through difficult times with little struggle’. After controlling for various factors, including age, gender, ethnicity, and course (undergraduate or postgraduate) preliminary analysis revealed that the components of SDT provided useful predictive value for academic success and resilience. In particular, autonomy and competence provided a useful predictor of academic success while relatedness was a particularly useful predictor of resilience. This study demonstrated that SDT provides a valuable framework for helping to understand what predicts academic success and resilience among social work students. This is relevant because the psychological needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness can be affected by external social and cultural pressures, thus they can be improved by the right type of supportive teaching practices and educational environments. These findings contribute to the growing evidence-base to help build an academic and resilient social worker student body and workforce.Website 

Areas of expertise

Jill has a background in working with homeless people, particularly those who are disenfranchised and excluded from service provision.

She graduated from Oxford Brookes University in 1996 with a Diploma in Social work and a BA Hons in Applied Social Science.

Jill went on to work in the field of mental health and worked in both voluntary and statutory sector agencies as a social worker, and became the lead practitioner for Dual Diagnosis in the Mental Health Care Trust. During this time she graduated with a Masters degree in Mental Health and the Practice Teaching Award. In 2011 Jill completed a Post Graduate Diploma in Teaching in Higher Education.

She has spent much of her career supporting and educating students in the field.

Before starting her current role Jill went on to manage the award winning Elmore Team; an agency that works with people who have complex needs and who find it difficult to engage with services where she was involved with the day to day management of a service along with developing pilot services that focused on prison in reach, sex working , antisocial behaviour, supporting young parents with complex needs and service user involvement and collaborated with partners such as Shelter and Revolving Doors to influence government policy in these respects.

Membership of professional bodies

• Health and Care Professions Council - HCPC registration no; SW03059
• British Association of Social Workers
• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (since 2014).

EXTERNAL EXAMINING

• External Examiner for Msc Social Work programme University of Bedfordshire (Nov 17 to present day).

Conferences

International

• International Conference on Social Work, Paris (Psychological factors that are associated with resilience in social work students) 2017
• CRISOWO Professional Social Work and Sustainable Development in Africa, Rwanda 2018 (As before and Research to understand the experiences of black and minority ethnic social work students with the aim of improving the attainment of BME social work students).

National

• Shelter Conference 2007 (Working with rough sleepers)
• Joint Social Work Education and Research conference, Canterbury 2018 (Psychological factors that are associated with resilience in social work students)
• University of Edinburgh May 2019 Joint Social Work Education International Committee presentation (Social work research in order to both understand and promote psychological wellbeing in service-users and social workers themselves in Burundi and the UK).

Local

• Oxford City Council Housing conference 2009 – Delivering a service user involvement conference presentation.
• Oxford County Council Social Care conference 2018 (Working with Difficult to Engage Service Users) & 2019 (Vicarious Trauma).
• Brookes Teaching and Learning conference May 2019 (Psychological factors that are associated with resilience in social work students)

Press, publicity and reviews

• The Guardian 14 April 2009 – ‘Kneejerk Policies a Strain on the Prison System says Charity’. This article outlines the work that I completed whilst I was in the position of Acting Director at Elmore Community Services.
• 2019 -BASW – Podcast on Psychological factors that are associated with resilience in social work students