Rate My Professor Wendy Foote

Associate Professor Wendy Foote is an Associate Professor in the School of Humanities, Creative Industries and Social Sciences at the University of Newcastle, Australia, and Course Convenor for the Bachelor of Social Work Honours program. She earned her Doctor of Philosophy and Master of Social Work from the University of Sydney, completing her PhD in 2007 on decision-making in Family Court judgments involving child sexual abuse allegations during divorce proceedings. Her extensive career includes frontline social work at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead in child abuse teams and therapeutic interventions with sexually abused children at Barnardos Australia. Foote served as Deputy Chief Executive Officer and Director of Policy and Membership at the Association of Children’s Welfare Agencies (ACWA) for nearly seven years, leading a team of 40 staff in policy development, high-level advocacy, research translation, practitioner training, and oversight of the peer-reviewed journal Developing Practice. During this time, she managed the state’s foster care recruitment program FosteringNSW for five years and co-chaired the ACWA/FaCS Therapeutic Care Committee, which developed the Therapeutic Care Framework for New South Wales. She also acted as Deputy CEO of the Australian Community Workers Association, spearheading the ‘Kinship Care: Making it a National Issue’ project that reviewed national policies and created an advocacy framework in consultation with governments, service providers, and carers, garnering media attention and policy engagement.