Linda Homan

Linda considers herself principally a youth worker as her previous volunteer and professional career has focused on work with young people. Social and environmental justice are important to her.

linda.homan@aru.ac.uk

Background

Linda's previous posts include Youth Work Manager, Young Carers Development Manager, Cyrenians and Wintercomfort Street Homeless Outreach worker and latterly Manager.

Other roles include: Youth Funding Coordinator, Residential Children's Home Manager, Regulation 44 Quality Assurance of Children's Homes, Senior Social Worker in Cambridgeshire County Council's Emergency Duty Social Work Team undertaking child and adult protection and Mental Health Act Assessments.

Linda has also volunteered as Trustee of Wintercomfort and been a supporter of Cambridge Cyrenians.

Linda features in the book 'Stuart: A Life Backwards' by Alexander Masters about a homeless man she knew, and the 'Free the Cambridge Two' incident in Cambridge. Linda has also helped set up and co-ordinate a youth motorbike project (www.gauntlet.biz) which is still running.

Currently, Linda works part time at ARU Peterborough as a Senior Lecturer and CPFT CAMHS Home Treatment Team as a Senior Mental Health Practitioner.

Research interests

• Young people and health outcomes 
• Child and adult protection 
• Risk and decision making 
• Stress and coping particularly in relation to obesity, smoking and socioeconomic impacts 
• Mental Health and wellbeing and Salutogenesis

As an emergency social work practitioner for over seven years, Linda is interested in how and why professionals manage risk. This interest spans mental health and protecting vulnerable adults and children. Socioeconomic inequalities and its impact on health and wellbeing on patients, service users, and experts by experience of social care, are also an interest of hers. In particular, research into the differences between socioeconomic impact on smoking and other stress coping habits.

Teaching

Linda is Senior Lecturer Practitioner on the Social Work BA course at ARU-P. Teaching Mental Health and Adult and Children's Law, Children's and Adult Safeguarding, Research, knowledge and ethics in practice, and other subjects including psychological, sociological and social policy impacts on well-being across the life course.

Qualifications

• MA Health and Community Development, De Montfort University, Leicester. 
• BSc (Hons) Social Work, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge. 
• JNC Professional Qualification in Youth Work, De Montfort University, Leicester. 
• Social Work Practice Teaching Award, University of East Anglia, Norwich. 
• City and Guilds 7307 Teaching Adult Learners, Cambridgeshire County Council. 
• Executive Diploma in Management - Chartered Management Institute (CMI), Cambridge and Peterborough Foundation Trust. 
• Postgraduate Certificate in Mental Health. Approved Mental Health Professional (AMHP), University of Hertfordshire. 
• PG Certificate in Learning and Teaching (Higher Education), Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge. 
• Certificate in Adlerian Counselling and Psychotherapy (Currently studying for the Diploma)

Memberships, editorial boards

• Registered social worker - Social Work England 
• Member – Peterborough Citizens  
• Fellow - Higher Education Academy (FHEA) 
• Member of the Adlerian Institute for Individual Psychology
• Member BACP

Research grants, consultancy, knowledge exchange

• Linda previously held the post of Youth Funding Coordinator for Cambridgeshire County Council in a short term 9-month project helping 57 groups to apply for additional funding. 
• Current funding – to develop health applications for public health professionals in Fenland and Peterborough. 

Selected recent publications

• Homan, L. and Regan, E., (2018). Young People’s Perceptions of Smoking Behaviour and the Implications for Social and Health Workers. Journal of Czech and Slovak Social Work, 18 (4), pp.21-33.

Pending articles (available on request): 

• Homan, L., and Smith, L. (2022) An examination of the skills used in risk assessing in an Emergency Duty Social Work Environment (implications for risk awareness in social work education). 
• Homan, L., (2022). Ecological Theory, and the unwritten layer. Urie Bronfenbrenner and the missing theoretical perspectives of Kurt Lewin (Implications for theoretical understanding in social work).