Mrs Anna Elliott

Staff Tutor

School of Health, Wellbeing & Social Care

Anna.Elliott@open.ac.uk

01908654883

07900882823

Biography

Professional biography

I started work with the Open University as a Staff Tutor in the Social Work Team in Wales in Sept 2022 .

My professional background is in Youth Offending, Children and Families Social Work and Professional Development and Leadership .

I have worked in the University Sector since 2017

Qualifications

BA Social Science London Met 1988

Dip HE in Social Work Exeter University 1991

Practice Teacher Award Chichester University 1998

PGDiploma in Management in Public Sector Partnerships Office for Public Management 2002

A Diploma in Teaching in the Life Long Learning Sector Yeovil College 2013

MSc Professional Development 2017

PG Teaching Certificate UWE 2020

Teaching Fellowship 2020

My current role is an Academic Role with cluster management responsibility for K123 Introduction to Social Work and the year 3 optional module KE322 Youth and Family . We are a small team in Wales and are all involved in a variety of ways across the whole programme . Social Work in Wales is delivered in Partnership with our Local Authorities and some Voluntary Sector organisations who all sponser students to undertake the BSc Social Work. A core requirement of the Social Work programme is to work in partnership both with our sponsering LAs but also with Service Users and Carers. This is supported by the Social Services and Wellbeing Act Wales (2016) . Working with and developing our Service User and Carer group is one of my key roles in the team and I am very passionate about their meaningful involvement and coproduction in all aspects of our programme .

One of my other areas of interest personally and professionally is Health and Wellbeing. My Masters focused on Recruitment and Retention of Social Workers in Somerset where I undertook a research Project on how Mindful Leadership supports the retention of social workers.

I worked with Mindfulness UK on developng and delivering this project and was invited to speak at several conferences.

I am a qualified Yoga Teacher with the British Wheel of Yoga and a qualified Mindfulness Instuctor .

My other great passion is the Environment and my committment to do everything I can to protect and conserve our environment.

I qualified and have delivered Forest School training. Undertaken a Permaculture course and worked voluntarily both in New Zealand and in Somerset on raising environmental awareness through community events.

Since working at the Open University I have studied a Microcredentials course on Building Sustainability in your Organisation and Carbon Literacy. Working in Wales the legislation on Wellbeing of Future Generations underpins the responsibility for all organisations to consider how what they do impacts on future generations.

My mission is to link with others across the University Sector to integrate the UN Sustainable Development Goals (STGs) into our teaching programmes starting with involvement in Module re writes of second and third year Social Work practice modules .

I have advised a colleague on building sustainability into the Masters in Educational Leadership and Management and am working with colleagues from STEM on building the STGs into assessment in Physics modules.

In 2024 I worked on a Changemakers Programme with Students Organising Sustainability (SOS) to integrate sustainability and creatively support the OUs committment to sustainability.

Research interests

Health and Wellbeing in particular how our connection with our environment supports our wellbeing and builds our understanding of the importance of green and blue spaces. I am a keen long distance walker, cold water swimmer and pilot gig rower.

Currently involved in volunteering on a Flourish in Nature Programme with an organisation Waythrough supporting people in recovery from drug and alcohol programmes to engage with their natural surroundings .

Buiilding Sustainability into the Social Work Programme

I worked for the Trust for the Study of Adolescence (TSA) 2000 - 2005 on a Youth Justice Board Parenting Project evaluating and coordinating Parenting Work with pilot sites across the UK . As part of this project I collaboarated as an author with The Prison Reform Trust on their publication Young Parents in Prison . Our work with the TSA on Parenting in Youth Justice was also published as a practitioner guide and I was an author on this. It was distributed along with other good practice guides to all Youth Offending Teams.

As part of my MSc I researched the impact of the 8 week mindfulness based stress reduction programme on leaders and managers

As part of my PG Cert teaching at UWE I researched the views of students and partners on the introduction of a new e portfolio Pebblepad

I was involved in conducting interviews with Social workers on the Step Up to Social Work programme and Social Workers in Local Authorities for Dr Elizabeth Frosts publicised work on Building Resilience in Social Work whilst I was a Senior Lecturer at UWE .

Current Praxis Project on Exploring the Success of students with credit transfer on our Social Work Programme.