Mrs Aga M. Buckley

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Aga M. Buckley
About
Teaching and learning
Research
Business, knowledge transfer and international
Professional practice, knowledge exchange and impact

About

I am a Master Social Work Course Leader and Postgraduate Researcher exploring lived experiences of compassion fatigue among Newly Qualified Social Workers. I teach social work theory, law,  applied social work practice and social pedagogy and favour creative and Arts-based research methods. I  am passionate about relational approaches to education and social work while advocating for equity, inclusion and human agency. I recently became a Fellow of the Royal Society for Arts (FRSA), which reflects my commitment and passion for creativity, innovation and social impact. 

I qualified as a social worker in 1999 with a diploma in social work and a degree in social pedagogy, and I have specialised in mental health over the years. I have a Master's in Advanced Mental Health Practice and worked as an Approved Mental Health Professional (AMHP) and Best Interests Assessor (BIA), Practice Lead and Principal Social Worker in local authorities and NHS before joining Kingston University's Department of Social Work and Social Care in 2016. I am an External Examiner with the University of Manchester for their post-qualifying courses. 

I am a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA) and a lifelong learner. My interest in inter and multi-disciplinary learning and novel ways students and staff learn led to secondment with the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Centre (LTEC) Academic Staff Development, where I supported colleagues in gaining recognition of Advance HE for various categories of Fellowships. As a member of the British Association of Social Workers (BASW) Neurodivergent Social Worker Special Interest Group and Equity, Diversity, Inclusion (EDI) Advisory Group, I regularly engage in various professional social work initiatives and projects that often feed into my engagement with the university's Network of Equality Champions and EDI Action Group. 

Academic responsibilities

Master Social Work Course Leader

Qualifications

  • MA Advanced Mental Health Practice: Bournemouth University
  • PGDip Advanced Mental Health Practice (AMHP/BIA): Bournemouth University
  • Graduate Award Consolidation in Specialist Mental Health Practice: Bournemouth University
  • Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Pedagogy, Social Readjustment: College of Higher Education in Humanistic Studies Gdansk, Poland
  • Diploma in Social Work: College of Social Work, Gdansk, Poland
  • Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

Teaching and learning

Qualifications and expertise

  • Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Pedagogy, Social Readjustment: College of Higher Education in Humanistic Studies Gdansk, Poland
  • Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
  • Professional Standards Framework (PSF) Advance HE Assessor (D1, D2 & D3)

Undergraduate courses taught

Postgraduate courses taught

Research

"Through Their Eyes: Compassion Fatigue among NQSWs": current

I am a Postgraduate Researcher and a Doctoral Candidate at Kingston University. My research study received a favourable ethical opinion from the Kingston University Ethics Research Committee (application number: 3149) and is supervised by Dr Melania Calestani and Professor Kathy Curtis.  I combined the Hermeneutic Phenomenological lens with an adaptation of the Photovoice in my qualitative research design to research the lived experiences of compassion fatigue among early-career social workers in England.

Conferences:

The Joint Social Work Education and Research Conference (JSWEC) in Glasgow,  hosted by the University of Strathclyde on 15th and 16th June 2023.  I presented a short series of posters titled "When Heidegger meets Freire..." based on my doctoral research design, winning joint first prize for the best poster award by the JSWEC Scientific Committee. Poster available at Research Gate: DOI:10.13140/RG.2.2.14176.46089.

Interdisciplinary Learning Project: SADRAS (2019-2020) 

I co-led SADRAS (Student Academic Development Research Associate Scheme) Inter-disciplinary Learning Project focused on a small-scale study designed and completed jointly with students and colleagues from the School of Nursing as part of the project team. The project received a favourable ethics opinion from the Kingston University Ethics Research Committee and was conducted between November 2019 and June 2020; it was finalised earlier due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The study provided insight into the inter-professional communication between students from different disciplines, contributing to the development of inter-disciplinary culture in helping professions across the Schools and Faculty. An article sharing the study findings was published by The Journal of Practice Teaching and Learning DOI: 10.1921/jpts.v18i1-2.1589. 

Qualifications and expertise

  • Hermeneutic Phenomenology UCLan International Course for PG Researchers
  • NIHR ARC Leadership Research Academy

Areas of specialism

  • Mental Health Social Work Applied Practice, Theory and Legislation
  • Compassion Fatigue, Secondary Traumatic Stress and Burnout
  • Higher Education Teaching and Learning
  • Hermeneutic Phenomenology
  • Interdisciplinary & Interprofessional Practice

Publications

Jump to: Article | Book Section | Conference or Workshop Item | Moving Image/Broadcast | Sound Recording
Number of items: 14.

Article

BASW Neurodivergent Social Workers Special Interest Group, Solomon, Deb, McCabe, Jenni, Symonds, Sandy, Buckley, Aga and Grimm, David (2023) Neurodistinct social workers need allyship. Professional Social Work, Mar/Apr, p. 35.

Buckley, Aga [Reviewer] (2022) Book Review of 'Errors and mistakes in child protection. International discourses, approaches and strategies' edited by Kay Biesel, Judith Masson, Nigel Parton and Tarja Pösö. The British Journal of Social Work, ISSN (print) 0045-3102 (Epub Ahead of Print)

Buckley, Aga M., Richardson, Sally, Newcombe, Sophie and Dobrzycka, Marzena (2021) What professional language do you speak? Exploring inter-disciplinary communication with nursing and social work students via SADRAS Project initiative. The Journal of Practice Teaching and Learning, 18(1-2), ISSN (print) 1759-5150

Buckley, Aga M [Reviewer] (2020) Book Review of 'Writing analytical assessments in social work, 2nd edn' by Chris Dyke. The British Journal of Social Work, ISSN (print) 0045-3102 (Epub Ahead of Print)

Book Section

Buckley, Aga M., Alice, Cat and Mad Hatter (2023) Bona Fide : neither specious nor counterfeit...more often sincere than genuine, yet always 'in good faith'. In: Maclean, Siobhan and Bentley-Simon, Kelly, (eds.) Emergence : hidden narratives from neurodivergent social workers. Lichfield, U.K. : Kirwin Maclean Associates. pp. 124-128. ISBN 9781912130764

Conference or Workshop Item

Buckley, Aga (2024) Pause...for the centuries-old concepts in the future university teaching : Pestalozzi's pedagogy of love. In: 50th International Conference on Improving University Teaching; 31 July - 2 Aug 2024, Milwaukee, U.S.. (Unpublished)

Buckley, Aga (2024) Through their eyes : compassion fatigue among newly qualified social workers. In: South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust’s Annual Mental Health Social Work Conference 2024; 09 Apr 2024, London, U.K.. (Unpublished)

Essilfie, Will H., Paliokosta, Paty, Calabrese, Gianpiero and Buckley, Aga (2024) Peer support groups : nurturing nuanced understandings of racialized positionalities of personal tutors. In: UKAT Annual Conference 2024 : Personal Tutoring in the Spotlight; 08-09 Apr 2024, London, U.K.. (Unpublished)

Buckley, Aga (2023) Neurodiversity, gender and HE. In: Kingston University Athena SWAN Café; 05 Jul 2023, Kingston upon Thames, U.K..

Buckley, Aga, Calestani, Melania and Curtis, Katherine (2023) When Heidegger meets Freire. In: JSWEC 2023: Social Work Education, Research and Practice in Turbulent Times; 15-16 Jun 2023, Glasgow, U.K..

Buckley, Aga M. (2023) Cultivating range in educational developer role. In: SEDA Spring Conference 2023 : The role of the educational developer in an ever-evolving landscape; 19 May 2023, Held online. (Unpublished)

Solomon, Deb, Hawker, Max, Morgan, Miranda, Buckley, Aga and Bentley-Simon, Kelly (2023) The neurodivergent practitioner : an atypical experience of social work. In: Social Work England : Social Work Week 2023; 20-24 Mar 2023, Held online. (Unpublished)

Moving Image/Broadcast

Buckley, Aga and Merry, Kevin L. (2023) Boundaries and other things. (podcast). (Talking Learning and Teaching : MH & W)

Sound Recording

Varga-Atkins, Tunde [Interviewer], Buckley, Aga [Interviewee], Mitchell, Chris [Interviewee] and Easton, Graham [Interviewee] (2023) The One With The M&Ms. (Interview). University of Liverpool. (48:35) (Treasure Island Pedagogies, no. 28)

This list was generated on Thu Oct 31 06:46:46 2024 GMT.

Business, knowledge transfer and international

Qualifications and PROFESSIONAL expertise

  • Approved Mental Health Professional (Masters Advanced Mental Health Pracice)
  • Best Interest Assessor (PGDip Advanced Mental Health Practice)
  • Senior Fellow Higher Education Academy (Advance HE)
  • Social Pedagogy (BA Pedagogy)

Professional practice, knowledge exchange and impact

I am appointed as an External Examiner with the University of Manchester, since 2021. I support the work of academic staff on several level 7 modules at the Approved Mental Health Professional Course.

Qualifications and expertise

  • MA Advanced Mental Health Practice
  • PGDip Advanced Mental Health Practice (AMHP & BIA)

Professional and scholarly affiliations

  • Social Work England
  • British Association of Social Workers
  • Manchester University
  • Kingston University

Social media

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