School of Education and Social Work

Prof Suzy Braye

Post:Emeritus Professor (Social Work and Social Care)
Location:ESSEX HOUSE
Email:S.Braye@sussex.ac.uk

Biography

Summary

Suzy Braye is Emerita Professor of Social Work and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. Her professional background is in social work and in the management of local authority social services. After holding posts at the University of Liverpool and Staffordshire University, she joined the University of Sussex in 2005 and was Head of Department between 2006 and 2010. Her research interests are legal literacy in social work, adult social care policy and practice, adult safeguarding and self-neglect. In the period following the introduction of the social work degree in 2003, her research into legal literacy in social work (with Professor Michael Preston-Shoot, University of Bedfordshire) supported the development of innovative approaches to professional education, including the use of problem-based learning and e-learning.

Her research into self-neglect, starting in 2010 and conducted with Dr David Orr (University of Sussex) and Professor Michael Preston-Shoot (University of Bedfordshire), has been influential on the development of legislation and policy on self-neglect and has been used by Safeguarding Adults Boards, local authorities, NHS organisations and others to inform their work. Since 2015 she has practised as an independent consultant in adult safeguarding, engaging in research, training and practice development, and acting as an independent reviewer in statutory Safeguarding Adult Reviews. In 2017 she was awarded an OBE for her contribution to the field. 

Internationally she has worked with universities in Hong Kong, Australia, the USA, Portugal, Finland, Norway and Sweden, holding a visiting professorial post at the University of Gothenburg. Between 2008 and 2019 she was Editor-in-Chief of the European Journal of Social Work (http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/13691457.html