Advisor

Bio

Andrew Turnell AM lives in Australia. Andrew is Social Work Professor of Practice at the University of Cumbria, England and principal co-creator of the Signs of Safety. In January 2023, Professor Turnell received a Member of the Order of Australia award for his sustained, innovative contributions to child protection Social Work in Australia and around the world.

Andrew’s Bachelor’s degree and PhD were undertaken in Social Work at Curtin University in Perth. His Master’s degree is in Culture and Creation-centred Spirituality and was undertaken at Holy Names College in Oakland California. 

Andrew is well known internationally for his ground-breaking work in applying safety organised, solution-focused and systemic practice and thinking to statutory child protection practice and organisation. Andrew has published extensively on the Signs of Safety, the Resolutions approach to ‘denied’ child abuse and on applying solution focused, restorative justice and strengths-based practice with complex cases of torture, abuse and violence.

Andrew’s work has taken him around the world for over 25 years with his primary foci on practice and organisation that involves everyone with family and natural connections to the vulnerable child in all aspects of building safety and belonging around the children.  Andrew is currently working with Children’s Services agencies in England, Belgium and Sweden. In the past ten years Andrew has worked in the USA, Canada, UK, throughout Europe including Ireland, Japan, Cambodia and Uzbekistan. Andrew is an internationalist so wherever he works he focuses on adapting his thinking, models and practices to the country, culture and context in which he is working.

Andrew has worked in partnership with Professor Eileen Munro from the London School of Economics for nearly twenty years and together they have co-authored five papers and numerous reports based on their collaborations. Most recently, Andrew and Eileen led an English government research project focused on the Child’s Voice and IT Transformation.