Natasha Cortis is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Social Policy Research Centre, University of New South Wales. Her research explores the organisation, delivery and evaluation of social services.
Bronwen Dalton is Director of the Centre for Australian Community Organisations and Management at the University of Technology, Sydney. Bronwen has had extensive experience studying and working in the field of third sector studies.
Bob Davidson is a private consultant whose work focuses on organisational development in the context of economic and social policy and programs. He has previously held senior positions with Commonwealth and state governments and in the corporate sector. He is currently undertaking a PhD at the Social Policy Research Centre (UNSW) on the impact of the marketisation of human services on service provider organisations.
Joy Goodfellow has over 40 years experience as an early childhood educator and researcher. She is a Senior Research Fellow at a not-for-profit child care organisation and holds honorary positions at Macquarie University and Charles Sturt University. Her current research interests are in early childhood teachers’ professional practices, grandparents as child care providers and in how babies experience formal child care environments.
Rolf Å. Gustafsson is a Professor of Sociology at Mälardalen University, Sweden. His research interests include the history of public employment, working life and institutional analysis of the welfare state. He has studied the intended and unintended effects of New Public Management, particularly what the shift from a citizen perspective to a customer focus means in terms of democracy. x
Debra King is a Senior Research Fellow at the National Institute of Labour Studies, Flinders University. She is a sociologist with research interests in the relationship between the emotional and structural dimensions of work. Her research on care and care work includes workers in the childcare, health care, and aged care sectors. She is on the steering committee of the Australian Paid Care Research Network.
Bill Martin studies issues of paid work and the labour market in the National Institute of Labour Studies and the Department of Sociology at Flinders University, Adelaide. His current research concerns the Australian community services workforce, private sector managers’ careers and retirement processes, and the relationship between career pathways and labour markets.
Gabrielle Meagher is Professor of Social Policy at the University of Sydney. Her research on paid care work examines its economic, organisational, ethical and experiential dimensions. She is co-convenor of the Social Policy Research Network, and on the steering committee of the Australian Paid Care Research Network.
Jane Mears is an Associate Professor working in the Social Justice Social Change Research Centre at the University of Western Sydney, where she teaches social policy to students studying community work, social policy and social work. Her research focuses on the ways social policy can best intervene and support, not further hurt and alienate, those who may be vulnerable or in need of care and protection.
Frances Press is a Senior Lecturer in early childhood education at Charles Sturt University, Bathurst. She has a strong and abiding interest in early childhood policy. xi
Jennifer Sumsion is a Professor of Early Childhood Education at Charles Sturt University, Bathurst. Her current research focuses on the quality of early childhood education and care, as perceived by a range of stakeholders, including children themselves.
Marta Szebehely is a Professor of Social Work at Stockholm University, Sweden. Her fields of research include gender, social policy and care in comparative perspectives. She is responsible for research on Care in Ageing and Diversifying Societies within the new Nordic Centre of Excellence: Reassessing the Nordic Welfare Model.
Rachel Wilson is a Lecturer in research methods and educational assessment and evaluation at the University of Sydney. She has completed degrees in psychology, audiology and education and conducts interdisciplinary research in the fields of early childhood, education and social policy.
Christine Woodrow is a researcher and early childhood teacher educator in the School of Education at the University of Western Sydney. Her research interests are early childhood policy, early childhood workforce and leadership issues, and the search for robust professional identities. She has recently been involved in several practitioner research circles, exploring their potential for building leadership capacity across the field. xii