Tom Slater

Background

About Tom Slater

I am currently the Education Quality Assurance Manager at Social Care Wales. In this role, I manage the team responsible for quality assuring regulated social work/care programmes (as defined under the Regulation and Inspection (Wales) Act 2016.Before joining Social Care Wales, I was a senior lecturer in social work at Cardiff University School of Social Sciences. As a senior lecturer, I undertook both teaching and research. In this role I have responsibilities as an admissions tutor, personal tutoring (post-graduate), PhD supervisor, supervising dissertations (post-graduate), and teaching on the masters in social work degree. My research interests include, suicide prevention, mental health social work and child neglect. Prior to working at Cardiff University I was the Senior Policy Researcher for the NSPCC in Wales. This was a varied and very interesting role where I undertook, commissioned and reviewed research with a view to influencing policy production in Wales. In this role I was able to work closely with colleagues from across the the UK and gain an insight into devolution processes.I completed my PhD at Cardiff University in 2015; researching the role of statutory social workers in suicide prevention. During this time I was a doctoral representative on the planning board of, what is now, the European Association for Social Work Research (EASWR)(2011-13). In addition to this, I gained experience teaching undergraduate and masters students.Before my PhD I undertook a Masters degree in social work at Cardiff University and worked as a qualified social worker in a statutory Children's Service Assessment Team. In this role I worked with vulnerable children/young people and their families in times of crisis and upheaval. Before my career in social work/care, I had a series of roles in finance and insurance. For my undergraduate I studied sociology at the University of York.