About Sam Forster
Prior to qualifying as a social worker in 2005 I worked in a number of voluntary sector organisations in both children and families as well as adult service user groups and I have worked in both sectors since qualifying. However, the main body of my experience is in adult services, in particular, people with learning disabilities, autism and those in inpatient forensic mental health services. More recently I have worked as an Independent Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards Assessor and a Specialist Mental Capacity Assessor in matters of financial management, establishing whether individuals have the capacity to manage their own financial affairs.
I joined the Social Work team at the University as a tutor in September 2019 and have been a Senior Lecturer since January 2020.
Teaching and supervision
I currently teach on the BA (Hons) Social Work and Social Work (Integrated Degree) Apprenticeship and have also taught on the MA course.
The subjects I have taught include the social work assessment process as well as the values and ethical basis of social work practice. I am currently in the process of designing a module for social work practitioners which will contribute towards their continuous professional development.
Interests
My areas of research interest are autism, learning disability, the social relational model of impairment, social psychology and strengths based practice. I am in the process of studying for my PhD which has the title 'Exploring autistic adults' experiences and perceptions of friendship'. This work follows on from my MSc Psychology research dissertation on awareness of 'mate crime' amongst young autistic adults which has subsequently been published: "Bullies tend to be obvious' Autistic adults' perceptions of friendship and the concept of mate crime' (2019) Forster and Pearson in Disability and Society.