Professor Andrew Whittaker

I joined LSBU in 2005 and I am Emeritus Professor of Social Work Research. I gained my PhD studying risk and decision making in child protection at the Tavistock Clinic, London and was seconded to their Centre for Social Work Research (2010-12). My research focuses upon risk and decision making in the field of preventing violence towards children and young people, including gangs, youth violence and criminal child exploitation. I previously worked for 17 years as a practitioner and manager in the fields of child protection and child and adolescent mental health.

My research focuses on how we understand risk and how we can make the best decisions to protect children and young people from violence, abuse and neglect. My research on street gangs focused upon how gangs have moved from postcode-based conflicts to more organised child criminal exploitation within drugs markets and how trauma-informed approaches can contribute towards violence reduction.
I am interested in how professionals make decisions in real life situations and how predictable errors can be avoided. I have developed a model of decision analysis that I used when analysing professional decision making in a high-profile child death inquiry in Queensland, Australia.
I am an advocate of research-informed teaching and have developed a scenario-based digital teaching tool with Prof Karin Moser from the Business School. This has been evaluated by an RCT with promising results and has become the focus for a final year social work module focused upon risk and decision making.
I believe that universities have an important role to play in improving the lives of those in local, national and international communities. I recently was a Commissioner for the Poverty and Inequality Commission for the Smith Institute chaired by Baroness Tyler in Enfield. I have also acted as a speaker and consultant to a number of Violence Reduction Units across London.
When I was seconded to the Tavistock Clinic, I co-authored studies into child abuse linked to witchcraft and spirit possession and prison mental health care. I am the Editor of the Journal of Social Work Practice and am Co-convenor of the European research network for Decisions, Assessment and Risk (DARSIG).

Co-lead of the Population Health and Prevention research group

Qualitative data analysis (Professional Doctorate) Human Growth and Development (BA and MA)