Len Tierney Lecture 2024
On 22 October, the annual Department of Social Work Len Tierney Lecture was held to discuss the topic of ‘Advancing social and health equity: Innovations in social work practice and research’.
This year, the event was facilitated as a panel discussion by Professor Lou Harms. The five guest speakers engaged in an intergenerational discussion of their practice and research innovations that transform inequality. Two inaugural recipients of the Len Tierney Social Work Travelling Award, Ms Grace Haslinghouse and Ms Gayathiri Jambulingam, spoke of their experiences travelling to New York and engaging with social work academics and practitioners in this context and on returning to Australia.
The Department of Social Works' two new professors, Professor Celia Chan and Professor Sarah Wendt, spoke of their work in social work advocacy, resistance and professional registration respectively. The final speaker for the evening was Professor Emeritus Irwin Epstein, formerly of City University New York and leading proponent of clinical data mining in social work research. The discussion was provocative and lively, reflective of the many challenges and opportunities in social work and human rights practice at this point in time.
On the following evening, 23 October, a dinner at University House was held to honour Professor Emeritus Irwin Epstein’s visit to Melbourne and the launch of his new book, Men as Friends. A conversation was led by Dr Nick Carr with Irwin, and the evening culminated in the awarding of the Hyslop Medal to Irwin in recognition of his outstanding contribution to social work in Australia.
