Biography - Janet Bardsley

I started my working life as a 18 year old nursing assistant in a large institution for people with learning disabilities. So I feel much of the history the SHLD group research, is the history I lived through! This early experience motivated me to work in different ways, and since that time I have been involved in a supporting people with learning disabilities in a range of local authority services as a social worker and manager. I was particularly involved in the large traditional ATC’s and using ideas of social firms and co-operative development to develop alternatives forms of work. In 2004 I started teaching social workers and was able to use the influence of the SHLD group to help me move from practitioner, to teacher and researcher in a way that continued the lessons of inclusiveness and learning with people with learning disabilities. I am now a member of the Social Work Department at The Open University.

Janet's people profile at The Open University

Publications

• ESCalate/CETL (2009) Contribution to group publication "Putting the I into Identity and other stories", Turner, R., Hughes, J. and Brown, T. (eds).
• Mason, M. , Bardsley, J., Mann J., Turner, R. (2010) "Research and teaching HE in an FE College. Chalk and cheese?" Practice & Evidence of the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning in HE.
• Bardsley, J. ( 2012) "Why Collaborate?"  In Katz, J., Peace, S. and Spurr, S. (eds) Adulthood, Ageing and the Lifecourse, Bristol, Policy Press.
• Bardsley, J. and Henstock, R. (2013) The challenge of becoming an ethical practitioner: facing the past, Ethics and Social Welfare Journal.