Faculty

Jacquie Green, Director and Associate Professor
Office: HSD B302a
Email: swdirect@uvic.ca
Phone: 250-472-4129

Kundoque (Jacquie Green) is from the Haisla Nation. She is Associate Professor in the School of Social Work and holds a BSW, MPA, and is currently working on a PhD through the Faculty of Human and Social Development. Committed to decolonization & cultural renewal, her research interests involve strategizing programs and policies that incorporate a strong Indigenous focus and analysis. Her current research is on reclaiming Haisla ways through Oolichan Fishing.

Links of interest

• UVic's Expert Details
  

Leslie Brown

Leslie Brown teaches research, at undergraduate and graduate levels. Her research interests include Indigenous child welfare and governance; critical, community and Indigenous approaches to research; and, social work education. Leslie was the Director of the School from 2001 to 2006 as well as the graduate advisor in 2007. She is a Principal Investigator with the Indigenous Child Welfare Research Network, the Interim Director of the Office of Community-Based Research and the Associate Dean of Research for the Faculty of Human and Social Development.

Links of interest

• Indigenous Child Welfare Research Network
• Institute for Studies and Innovation in Community-Engaged Research

Photo: Leslie and her bike

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Jeannine Carriere, Associate Professor
Office: HSD B343c
Email: carriere@uvic.ca
Phone: 250-721-6452
Visit Jeannine's web page

Jeannine is Metis originally from the Red River area of southern Manitoba. Jeannine has also lived and worked in Alberta for the last 25 years, focusing her career in Indigenous child and family services and teaching in the Access BSW program which focused on rural remote and Indigenous communities. Her current doctoral research focuses on the correlation between health and adoption for First Nation people. Her teaching experience is in areas such as Indigenous child and family services and other Indigenous content courses. Her research interests include Indigenous child and family practice and policy, Indigenous ways of knowing, mental health and decolonization for Indigenous people.

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Yvonne Haist, Assistant Teaching Professor

Yvonne has a background in early childhood education, adult education, social work, counseling psychology and in practices of somatic transformation. As such, she seeks ways to bridge teachings across these various disciplines. Her areas of interest and expertise include: embodied practice, working with trauma, group processes as means to social transformation and the intersection of the politic and the spiritual in social work practice.

Email: yhaist@uvic.ca
Phone: 250-472-4133

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Donna Jeffery, Associate Professor

Donna Jeffery’s research and teaching interests include: race and gender issues in the production of professional subjectivity; poststructural analyses of power and knowledge; intersectionality in the social organization of dominance and marginality; social work history. Donna completed her doctoral studies in sociology in education at OISE/University of Toronto. Her dissertation is entitled, A Terrain of Struggle: Reading Race in Social Work Education. Her current research looks at environmentalism, how ideologies of nature operate in social and political spaces, and, in particular, how the physical environment is represented in social work discourse. The next phase of this research will extend this methodological approach to the intersections of food politics and forms of social difference.

Email: donnaj@uvic.ca
Phone: 250-721-8037

Patricia MacKenzie

Patricia MacKenzie joined the School as an Associate Professor in July 1999. Prior to coming to UVic, Pat spent 11 years as an Associate Professor and Director of the Saskatoon Community Education Center at the University of Regina. Pat also was a practising social worker in Victoria from 1974 to 1988. She has an MSW from UBC and a Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh. Pat teaches in both the undergraduate and graduate programs of the School and is a research affiliate at the Centre on Aging. She is currently serving as the Associate Dean of Graduate Studies. Her primary research interests are in the area of health care, aging, interdisciplinary practice and rural communities.

Email: patmack@uvic.ca
Phone: 250-472-4698

Mehmoona Moosa Mitha, Associate Professor

Mehmoona Moosa-Mitha has worked for many years with children and their families, particularly in inner city, poor areas populated with people from visible minority communities. Her research interests include anti-oppressive practice and teaching; children's rights; child welfare practice and policy.

Email: mehmoona@uvic.ca
Phone: 250-721-8041

Pamela Miller, Professor
On sabbatical July 2013 to June 2014

Pam was Director of the School form January 2008 to December 2012.  During her five year term she was active with national, provincial and local professional and human service and health organizations. She took on the role of Chairperson for he Canadian Association of Dean and Directors of Schools of Social Work and President of BC Association of Social Work. She continues to represent the University on the Leadership Council for the Greater Victoria Coalition to End Homelessness and is a member of the research committee for the Coalition. She was on the steering committee for the United Way of Victoria during the development of a new direction for allocations. She continues to serve on the UW Impact Council which is responsible for assessing applications for funding. Pam is a member of the Vancouver Island Health Authority's (VIHA) Allied Health Steering Committee and has worked towards a social work practice leader in VIHA. She is the School's course team leader for the undergraduate research course.

Email: pamelami@uvic.ca 

Phone: 250-721-8046

Cheryl Moir Van Iersel, Assistant Teaching Professor

Cheryl Moir-van Iersel teaches in both the on campus and distance education programs. She chairs the BSW Working Group and is the faculty liaison for the Student Representative Program. This program is designed to bring student voices to the School's decision making processes. Cheryl also facilitates the Practicum Supervision in the Human Services course which provides a professional development opportunity for practicum supervisors.

Cheryl's interests lie in the areas of enhancing student engagement and encouraging creativity and play in her classrooms

Email: ciersel@uvic.ca
Phone: 250-721-8033

Gayle Ployer, Assistant Teaching Professor
Office: HSD B350
Email: gployer@uvic.ca
Phone: 250-721-8045

Catherine Richardson

Cathy Richardson has been with the School of Social Work since September 2007. Her areas of specialization include Indigenous resistance, decolonizing approaches to social work, response-based practice, safety-oriented and dignity-based child protection work, recovery from violence, and Indigenous approaches to research and scholarship centered around cultural, ecological and spiritual integrity. Cathy is interested in the intersections between family therapy, child protection, language-use and social responses to families.

Susan Strega, Professor & Graduate Advisor
Office: HSD B324 
Email: sstrega@uvic.ca
Phone: 250-721-8333
Visit Susan's web page

Susan Strega joined the School of Social Work in January 2006. Susan comes to UVic from the Faculty of Social Work at the University of Manitoba. She teaches in both the graduate and the undergraduate program. Her areas of specialization and interest include: research methodologies, discourse analysis, post structural approaches, child welfare, sex work and violence against women. Her most recent book is Failure to protect: Moving beyond gendered responses (Fernwood Publishing, 2013). Susan is currently the Graduate Advisor within the School.

Links of Interest

• Failure to Protect
• Walking this Path Together
• Research as Resistance

Robina Thomas

Qwul'sih'yah'maht (Robina Thomas) is Lyackson of the Coast Salish Nation. Associate Professor in the School of Social Work, Robina holds a BSW, MSW, and a PhD in Indigenous Governance.

Robina is committed to Indigenous education and her research interests include Storytelling, Residential Schools and Uy'skwuluwun: On Being Indigenous. She is committed to understanding anti-racism and anti-oppression and how these can be 'lived'.

Email: robinat@uvic.ca
Phone: 250-472-4877

Barbara Whittington, Associate Professor
On sabbatical in 2013: January to June

Barbara Whittington teaches in many parts of our Social Work program; on campus, distance, practicum, and in the Master's program. She is also the faculty coordinator of the Family Centre, an on-campus neighbourhood house for student's with children. Barbara's research and practice interests focus on families (including grandmas), harassment and equity issues and adult education and restorative justice.

Email: bwhittin@uvic.ca
Phone: 250-721-8044