Mrs Maria Brent
Senior Lecturer
Contact
- Email: m.brent@sgul.kingston.ac.uk
- Location: Kingston Hill
- Faculty: Faculty of Health, Social Care and Education
- School: School of Allied Health, Midwifery and Social Care
- Department: Department of Social Work and Social Care
About
I am a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Social Work and Social Care with particular interests in adult social care, specifically working with people in relation to person- centred practice, safeguarding, mental capacity and self-neglect.
Having worked in Adult Community Care as a social worker for many years dating back to 1996 I am passionate about supporting social workers to develop their skills and knowledge to work in a person-centred way. Having joined the Department over 4 years ago I have developed and now co-lead on a post-qualifying module in safeguarding adults at risk. This supports practitioners to explore the complexities of practice in balancing the right to autonomy with issues of risk and protection. I am also the co-lead for our Best Interest Assessor module and am currently involved in developing new modules that will reflect the proposed changes within the Liberty Protection Safeguards. I am undertaking my doctoral thesis which is an ethnographic study that is exploring social worker's experiences of working with adults who self-neglect.
Areas of specialism
- Safeguarding Adults at Risk
- Working with people who self-neglect
Qualifications
- 1996 - Diploma in Social Work– Kingston University
- 1996 - Diploma in Higher Education - Kingston University
- 2006 - MA in Professional Education & Training in Human Services - Kingston University
- 2007 - Practice Teaching Award - Kingston University
- 2008 - Advanced Social Work Post Qualifying Award - Kingston University
- 2015 - Best Interest Assessor Qualification - Bournemouth University
- Fellow of the Higher Education Academcy 2018
Industry links
Member of The British Association of Social Workers
Health Care Professionals Council (HCPC) registered Social Worker
Fellow of The Higher Education Academy
Research
My research interests include working with safeguarding adults, mental capacity and how we support people accessing adult community services. I am currently undertaking an ethnographic study that is exploring social workers' experiences of working with self-neglect as part of my doctoral thesis. I am interested in how social workers experience and understand self-neglect and what support they may need in this area of practice. I am also interested in relationship based practiced and was involved in a study that explored how social workers construct their relationships with the people they work with. I have been the project lead in developing a range of learning materials and films which have been co-developed with people who have accessed services in mental health, substance misuse, children and families and adults services. These films have been used in the education of social workers as they provide an authentic lens into the experiences of people who access services.
Publications
Number of items: 3.
Article
Hood, Rick, Brent, Maria, Abbott, Simon and Sartori, Daniele (2018) An exploration of practitioner-service user relationships in social work. The British Journal of Social Work, ISSN (print) 0045-3102 (Epub Ahead of Print)
Book Section
Brent, Maria (2015) Personalisation. In: Evans, Tony and Keating, Frank, (eds.) Policy and Social Work Practice. London, U.K. : Sage. pp. 82-99. ISBN 9781848606982
Monograph
Mein, Gill, Brent, Maria, Byford, Ian, Hall, Nigel, Kahraman, Ayfer and Lindsay, Jane (2015) A review of Public Health Services for older people in the Royal Borough of Kingston: the perspectives of service users and residents. (Project Report) Faculty of Health, Social Care and Education, Kingston University and St George's, University of London. 50 p. (Unpublished)