Joyce Brand, who has died aged 86, was a children’s services and mental health social worker, manager and campaigner, in East Sussex, London and Shropshire.
Born in London to Marion (nee Wilson) and Edward Brady, a postman, she went to La Retraite Catholic girls’ school in Clapham. At the age of 18 she married Ronald Brand, a civil engineer, and they had two sons and a daughter.
I first met Joyce in September 1969 on the first day of a professional social work qualifying course for “mature students”, at Medway and Maidstone College of Technology in Kent. She was a larger-than-life figure, bright, articulate, utterly committed to the social work task, with a waspish sense of humour. We shared a passion to see vulnerable children, young people and their families, and people who struggled with their mental health, receive good quality services, and a commitment to shift the discrimination and stigma that was, and sadly still is, attached by many people to these groups.
After qualifying in 1971, Joyce went into local government social work, first joining East Sussex social services. The inquiry into the death of seven-year-old Maria Colwell in Brighton in 1973 compelled East Sussex to develop specialist child protection services, in which Joyce was involved as social worker and then manager. In the mid-70s Joyce headed up the social work team to work on a more therapeutic approach to mental health at Hellingly psychiatric hospital, near Hailsham.
In the early 80s, Joyce moved to Hammersmith, west London, as a principal officer, then an assistant director, in the borough’s social services department. This urban setting contained far greater evidence of family deprivation and vulnerability, challenges that Joyce addressed with her customary gusto and empathy, while always willing to question authority, usually successfully.
On leaving Hammersmith in 1997, Joyce moved to Ludlow, but instead of stopping work she joined Shropshire social services, where she continued until 2002, and then Powys county council, as a freelance trainer and consultant to support social work staff, until 2004.
After Joyce retired completely, she reinvented herself as a campaigner against injustice. She argued successfully against the development of executive homes that would have obscured St Lawrence’s Church in Ludlow. In 2011 she protested against Shropshire county council’s move to cut some staff salaries by more than 5% by seizing a microphone in the council chamber.
Joyce was an indomitable force of nature. Fiercely loyal to friends and colleagues, she was enormously proud of her children and grandchildren.
Her son Matthew died in 2015, and Ronald three years later. She is survived by her daughter, Jo, her son William, three grand-daughters and five grandsons.
