4th February 2016
In our second child and youth care podcast I sat down with Professor Leon Fulcher, chairperson of CYC-Net, and current Child and Youth Care Consultant at TransformAction International. Leon has been working in the child and youth care field since the early 1960s and has taken a number of posts, both academic and residential across the world. An American by birth, he is now a New Zealand native, arriving there by way of the University of Stirling.
Leon is a widely published academic who has both authored and co-authored a number of papers and books over the years. He has a vast amount of cross-cultural practice and educational experience with children, young people and their families, embracing health, education, justice and welfare. He has worked in both rural and urban areas. By his own admission, despite having a professional qualification in psychiatric social work, his heart has always been with child and youth care.
To that end, Leon is involved in the Child Welfare Research Group in the School of Social and Political Science at the University of Edinburgh. The goal of this group is to advance the knowledge and development of child and youth care practice, and to advance research which directly bears on the lives of those involved with social work services.
Having a chance to sit down and talk with someone so distinguished and prolific was a real learning experience for me, and the fact that he extolls the virtue of continual learning and development when working as a child and youth care professional is a message that I believe child and youth care workers everywhere should do their best to adhere to.
I hope you enjoy this episode.