Alžbeta Brozmanová Gregorová, Slovakia
Alžbeta Brozmanová Gregorová is an associate professor at the Social Work Department of the Faculty of Education at Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica, Slovakia. Since 2017, she has been a vice-dean for international cooperation and public relations. She focuses primarily on volunteering, service-learning, NGO sector in Slovak conditions, project management, youth, and social work. She is the author of several publications, research studies, and articles in these areas. In her research and publication activity, she interconnects knowledge and skills gained through theoretical study, empirical research, and actual understanding of the practice. She acted as a coordinator and a person responsible for implementing several national and international research and educational projects and the service-learning coordinator at the Matej Bel University. She has been actively working in advocacy and development of volunteering since 2002. She also acts as a trainer, a project evaluator, a facilitator, and a supervisor.
Rebecca Davis, USA
Dr. Rebecca Davis is Associate Professor of Professional Practice and Director of the Office of Global Programs, Rutgers University School of Social Work in New Jersey, USA. Rebecca teaches social work practice methods, global social work, and international service-learning courses. Rebecca supervises service-learning programs in partnership with Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. She also assists in service-learning programs in Mexico, Israel, China, and India. Dr. Davis’ global work focuses on social work education and child protection system strengthening in Eastern Europe and Sub Saharan Africa with a special focus on violence against children. Her recent work included social service workforce assessments in Eastern Europe, strengthening case management services in Nigeria, Malawi, Swaziland, and Namibia, and evaluation of child welfare reforms in Ghana. She co-authored a working paper on Child Protection System Strengthening in Sub Saharan Africa for UNICEF (2012) and authored a working paper on Human Capacity Within Child Welfare Systems in Africa (2009). She authored a Case Management Toolkit for evaluating child welfare case management services in the Eastern Europe and Central Asia. She represents the International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW) to the United Nations and serves on the Boards of the UN Working Group on Girls and the Global Social Service Workforce Alliance. Rebecca’s global journey and partnership with social work in Romania began in 1992-94 as a Fulbright Scholar to Romania from 1992-94 and as Director of a major USAID-funded child welfare reform project for World Vision Romania 1998-2002. Rebecca is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in the States of New Jersey and North Carolina.
Alida van Dyk, South Afrika
Alida van Dyk is the Director for the Rural Development and Innovation Hub (RIDH) at the University of Limpopo. She completed her Bachelor of Arts degree in Social Work at the University of Pretoria and her Master’s degree in Mental Health at the University of South Africa (UNISA). Her dissertation focussed on the application of Child Care Policy and Legislation to African families and children in South Africa. Her current research is focussed on Higher Education policy, institutionalising and theorising of community engagement. Prior to joining the University of Limpopo she served for five years as Director of the Community Engagement Centre at the University of Fort Hare, and for nine years as Head of the Department of Social Work at UNISA. She received two prestigious awards namely the Chairperson of Council Award for Distinguished Leadership awarded by the Council of the UNISA and the international MacJannet Prize (2011) for Global Citizenship from the Talloires network. The prize was awarded to her and her team for service-learning projects at the UNISA: named the “Bright sites” of Sunnyside and Durban [urban and rural projects]. The projects were also benchmarked as best practices in training by the SA Council for Social Service Professions.
Martin Ierullo, Argentina
Martin Ierullo is a social worker and magister of Social Policies (Universidad of Buenos Aires, Argentina). Profesor and resercher in Universidad of Buenos Aires and National University of Moreno (Argentina).
Bárbara Labecky, Argentina
Bárbara Labecky is a social worker (University of Buenos Aires, Argentina). member of the professional team of "Program of Training and Strengthening for Social and Community Organizations".
Tatiana Matulayová, Czech Republic
Tatiana Matulayová is a senior lecturer at the Social Work Department of the Faculty of Arts at Charles University in Prague. She graduated with a bachelor's study in adult education, a master's study in Social Pedagogy, and Ph.D. study in adult education. She worked at several Slovak, Czech, and Polish universities. In her scientific research and teaching activities, she has been dealing with the issue of volunteering in social work, professionalization of social work, and school social work. I was a co-founder of several volunteer centers in Slovakia (in Prešov, Bratislava, Velká Tŕňa) and the Platform of Volunteer Centres and Organizations in Slovakia. She is an initiator, founder, and guarantor of the University Volunteer Centre at Palacký University in Olomouc – the first university volunteer center in the Czech Republic. She has recently implemented Service-Learning in Higher Education in the Czech Republic, namely at Palacký University and Charles University in social work-study programs. She is involved as a lecturer, a coordinator, and an expert in numerous educational local, regional and European projects. Since 2016, she is the president of the Association of Educators in Social Work in the Czech Republic. As part of her work, she advocates for the implementation of innovations in higher education in social work.
Cuzette du Plessis , South Afrika
Cuzette du Plessis have 29 years’ experience in; participatory community development, NGO program management, participatory action engaged research and the integration of community engagement as a scholarship of engagement in Higher Education South Africa. Her professional career focused on the facilitation of interactive learning, complex social change processes and to integrate the “voice” and active participation of those people development or learning services intend to benefit.Cuzette du Plessis have 29 years’ experience in; participatory community development, NGO program management, participatory action engaged research and the integration of community engagement as a scholarship of engagement in Higher Education South Africa. Her professional career focused on the facilitation of interactive learning, complex social change processes and to integrate the “voice” and active participation of those people development or learning services intend to benefit.Cuzette du Plessis is currently the Research, Innovation and Community Liaison Officer at The Rural Development and Innovation Hub (RDIH) of the University of Limpopo (UL). Prior to this appointment she was the Academic manager community engagement at the University of Fort Hare. Preceding she was the module leader for fourth year community development in the field of Social work at University of South Africa. Prior to her work as academic she worked for as Social Worker in the South African rural and urban landscape with the focus on Child and family Care, organisational management, community development, initiation of service delivery transformation, and statutory work.In 2011 she received a Masters of Arts in Social Science (Cum Laude) Titled; “Fourth-Year Student Social Workers’ Experiences Relating to their Social Work Practical Work Training at a Service-Learning Centre of an Open and Distance Learning University”..
Michaela Skyba, Slovakia
In 2013, she completed her doctoral studies at the Faculty of Arts, the University of Presov in the field of Social Work with the topic of Establishing School Social Work in Slovakia. In 2020, after successfully defending her habilitation thesis on the topic Theoretical Basis of School Social Work in Slovakia, she obtained the scientific-pedagogical title of "associate professor" in the field of habilitation proceedings and inaugural proceedings Social work at the Faculty of Arts, the University of Presov in Presov. She is currently a co-guarantor of the study program social work (3rd degree) and she works as an associate professor at the Institute of Educology and Social Work (Faculty of Arts, University of Presov). In her research and publishing activities, she focuses mainly on the topic of school social work and service-learning and she has given several invited lectures on these topics. She leads courses focused on school social work, community social work, social work science, service learning, volunteering in social work, etc. She was the main researcher and author of the project 2013vs058 Service-learning in the education of (school) social workers, thanks to which it was possible to successfully implement the service-learning educational method and strategy in the School Social Work course, which she led. The project followed the efforts to increase the quality of undergraduate training of social workers in Slovakia, which was the subject of a project implemented in 2012 Service. learning in Presov 2011vv23 supported by the Tatra Bank Foundation, where she was one of the co-researchers, managers, and lecturers. Long-term interest in enriching the theoretical and practical framework of school social work in Slovak conditions led her to scientific research intentions conceived within the project Vega no. 1/0288/17 Factors of institutionalization of school social work, in which she was the main researcher. In order to support the involvement and interest of students in these topics, she participated in the creation of several monographs and textbooks, of which she is the author and co-author.