Rate My Professor Shelley Turner

Shelley Turner is a Senior Lecturer and Early Career Researcher in Social Work in the Department of Social Work, School of Primary and Allied Health Care, Faculty of Medicine at Monash University. She earned her PhD in Social Work from Monash University in 2019, with a thesis titled "Case management in juvenile justice: clients' perspectives," which was published on Bridges and ranked in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric. Prior to entering academia in 2015, Turner amassed over 15 years of direct practice, clinical management, and senior executive policy and project experience in youth justice systems across New South Wales and Victoria. Notable roles included clinical manager of Australia's inaugural Youth Drug and Alcohol Court program, Acting Director of the Programs Branch at Juvenile Justice NSW, Chair of the state-wide Procedures Review Committee and Young Women’s Advisory Committee, and member of the Keep Them Safe Senior Officers Group. Additionally, she contributed over 10 years as a contract researcher and consultant to criminal justice and community services organizations.

Turner's research focuses on youth justice, community corrections, case management, forensic and statutory social work, work integrated learning, and knowledge co-production. Her key publications include the co-authored book "Co-production and Criminal Justice" (Routledge, 2022), the chapter "‘Giving Voice’: Communicating with Young People to Enhance Police Legitimacy and Compliance" in Law Enforcement and Public Health (Springer, 2022), and "Lengthy unpaid placements in social work: exploring the impacts on student wellbeing" (Social Work Education, 2021, with 41 Scopus citations). Other significant works encompass commissioned reports such as "Best practice principles for the operation of community service schemes: a systematic review of the literature" (Corrections Victoria, 2016, with Chris Trotter), "Growing old in prison? A review of national and international research on ageing offenders" (Corrections Victoria, 2010), and the chapter "Case management in corrections: evidence, issues and challenges" in Offender Supervision (Willan Publishing, 2010). She leads national projects, including a study on COVID-19 impacts on social work field education funded by the Australian Collaborative Education Network, accepts PhD students, and engages in media and conference contributions on youth justice and criminal justice reforms.