Email: i.butler@bath.ac.uk

Tel: 44(0) 1225 38 3294

Website: http://www.bath.ac.uk/sps/staff/ian-butler/

Professor Ian Butler is a qualified social worker with considerable practice and managerial experience. He has worked in residential and field settings, mainly with children and their families, in the statutory, voluntary and independent sectors. He is a member of the Academy of Social Sciences; a past Editor of the British Journal of Social Work (1999- 2004) and former Chair of the JUC SWEC (2003/4). In 1995, Prof Butler was made an Honorary Member of the Council of the NSPCC in recognition for his work in the field of child protection. From 2003 to 2012, Professor Butler was seconded to the Welsh Assembly Government where he was Special Adviser to the First Minister for Wales. He is a Member of the Board of the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (CAFCASS), England. Ian Butler’s main research interest lies in the development of public policy as it affects children, young people and their families. He is particularly interested in the role of scandal in the production of welfare policy and in the micro-politics of policy making. His social work interests focus on children and young people and the accounts that they provide of the lived experience of contemporary childhood(s) and current forms of welfare.