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.

Foote’s research centers on the interplay of welfare policies, funding mechanisms, and service delivery, particularly their effects on vulnerable children and families. Her expertise spans child protection, family inclusion practices, kinship care (including Aboriginal cultural definitions), out-of-home care, outcomes-based contracting for NGOs, and social work ethics. Select publications feature "Family inclusion in child protection: Knowledge, power and resistance" (2023, Children and Youth Services Review), "Australian and New Zealand social workers adjusting to the COVID-19 pandemic" (2022, British Journal of Social Work), "Threshold theory and social work education" (2013, Social Work Education), "Risky business: Impact of outcomes-based contracting on nongovernment out-of-home-care services" (2022, Children and Youth Services Review), and contributions to the Handbook of Research Methods in Social Work (2025, Edward Elgar Publishing). Previously a Senior Lecturer at UNSW, she now educates future social workers, integrating kinship care insights and ethical practice. As President of the Australian Council of Heads of Social Work Education (ACHSWE), Foote advances the profession through leadership in education, workforce capacity, and systemic reforms prioritizing children’s rights and fair welfare systems.