Sharon Walsh

VICE CHAIRPERSON

Sharon has worked in the child protection and gendered violence space for 40 years, having started young and initially working with returned service people and their families. It was here that her passion and commitment to working with people who had experienced significant trauma and adverse circumstances in life was established. She has extensive front line, managerial, supervisory and educational practice experience in the child protection, domestic violence, juvenile justice and community sector more broadly.

 As a long serving lecturer at the University of Newcastle she was instrumental in establishing curricula in Gendered Violence, Child Protection and Juvenile/Youth Justice areas while also teaching across the practice based areas of Case Work/Case Management, Group Work, Community Work and Work Integrated Learning.

Throughout her working life, Sharon has remained passionately committed to feminist, anti oppressive and anti discriminatory practice and analysis and believes these social justice based approaches are particularly pertinent and crucial in current times as practitioners work to respond to and support those who experience the intense impacts of neo liberalism the most. Currently she is working at DVNSW on Sector Development and Capacity Building.