While Judy Treseder was social work coordinator at St Thomas’ hospital in London in the 1980s, I managed child and family social work. HIV/Aids compelled us to develop appropriate social work support for the increasing diversity of local populations who were affected. There was also a surge of referrals of suspected child sexual abuse following the Cleveland inquiry.
Judy’s calm wisdom and rich experience was invaluable as we moved forward in multidisciplinary responses to both of these new challenges. She was a great supporter of innovative patterns of social work intervention in these areas, as new to her as they were to her staff. This was at a time when casework that had been focused on the person was being replaced by a tick-box bureaucratic approach.
My supervision sessions with her were occasions of critical affirmation, particularly when support from more senior social services management could not be relied upon.
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