In November 2024, Calvin Swords was appointed as a Lecturer of Social Work in the School of Applied Social Studies, University College Cork. As part of his core duties (teaching, research, service), Calvin is one of the Year Two Coordinators for the Master of Social Work Programme. He teaches across programmes in the School of Applied Social Studies. Prior to this, Calvin was a Lecturer of Social Work in the Department of Applied Social Studies, Maynooth University (2021-2024). Calvin was a Year Coordinator across both years of the programme. Up until 2021, Calvin worked as a CORU registered Social Worker. He brings with him experience in a wide range of practice settings within Ireland, the most recent of which was in a hospital setting working with people across all life stages. Calvin completed his PhD in 2021, which explored how recovery is socially constructed in Irish Mental Health Services. It was a qualitative case study design, which adopted an interpretivist methodology, using semi-structured interviews to gather the experiences of key stakeholders regarding their conceptualisation of recovery. For this study, Calvin was a recipient of the prestigious Irish Research Council postgraduate scholarship. This is one of the most competitive funding processes for doctoral research in Ireland. During his PhD from 2018-2021, Calvin contributed to the social work courses in Trinity College, Dublin and Maynooth University as a part-time lecturer. He has lectured across a range of topics relevant to social work education. Some notable areas of teaching and scholarship include health-related social work, sociology of mental health, mental health recovery, critical social theory, and human development across social contexts. Calvin has published in a range of Irish and International journals. His research interests are informed by a focus on seeking to make sense, and address, the social the social injustices faced by people through connecting the micro and macro levels of our social systems in order to drive positive change. This includes looking at social recovery in mental health, the influence of sociology on health-related social work, the role of interdisciplinary work, using philosophy in social work practice, and the role of lived experience and co-production within human organisations.  

Social Work Theory · Social Work Skills · Critical Debates in Social Work · Health-Related Social Work · Mental Health Policy · Mental Health Social Work · Critical Social Theory · Mental Health Social Work · Lived Experience Involvement