My friend and colleague Liz Brown, who has died of cancer aged 66, had a long and successful career as a social worker and child protection co-ordinator. She was passionately committed to supporting vulnerable families and an approach that was all about “working with” rather than “doing to”.
Liz was born and raised in Bristol, the daughter of Ron Allen, a civil servant, and his wife, Barbara (nee Skuse). After attending the Red Maids’ high school in the city, she studied history and then social work at Exeter University from 1969.
She became a social worker, first in Devon, then Bristol, and finally in Gloucestershire, where she was a child protection co-ordinator from 1992 to 2000. I and my colleague Mary Ryan first met Liz in 1997 when we worked with her on a project analysing patterns of need among families in contact with children’s social care in Gloucestershire.
This led to our setting up the independent consultancy that we ran together for 15 years. We collaborated on many projects – audits of need, service development, evaluations. Throughout, Liz had a clear vision about the importance of analysis in assessment work, and of clarity and simplicity when making plans for children and families.
Her desire to change practice in relation to assessment and planning for children involved her in training social workers, managers and others. She was a brilliant trainer and was interested in everyone she met.
Her empathy and passion combined to make her sessions lively opportunities for people to find useful ways of revitalising their practice. She was clear that any restructuring of social work practice required changes in the understanding and attitude of middle and senior managers – not always a popular message in local authorities, but she was prepared to hold her ground, often winning round sceptical managers. Liz worked all over England and Wales and was embarking on a number of projects with Welsh authorities at the time of her diagnosis.
Liz married Simon Brown, an architect, in 1980, and they raised two children, Hannah and Will, in the Forest of Dean and Monmouth. She had many friends, was politically engaged, loved reading and the theatre and was an amazing gardener, most recently at the converted barn near Abergavenny, south-east Wales, that the family moved into just before she became ill.
She is survived by Simon, Hannah and Will, her mother, her brother, Tim, and her grandchildren, Ella, Max and Lyla.
