Professor Andrew Turnell, AM
Andrew Turnell AM is Social Work Professor of Practice at Cumbria University, principal co-creator of the Signs of Safety, founding CEO of Elia International (the home of the Signs of Safety since 2020) and in January 2023 received a Member of the Order of Australia award for his sustained, innovative contributions to child protection Social Work.
Together with Pene Turnell, Andrew offers child protection training and consultancy through Turnell Plus. Andrew is well known internationally for his ground-breaking work in applying safety organised, solution-focused and systemic practice and thinking to statutory child protection practice and organisation. Andrew has published extensively on the Signs of Safety, the Resolutions approach to ‘denied’ child abuse and on applying solution focused practice with complex cases of torture, abuse and violence.
Andrew’s work has taken him around the world for over 25 years with his primary foci on practice frameworks grounded in what works in practice, child protection system alignment to effective practice and Signs of Safety whole system implementations. Andrew is currently working with York Children’s Services in their Signs of Safety implementation and most recently has worked in Belgium, Ireland, the Northern Territory as well as Uzbekistan on working rigorously and collaboratively with perpetrators of domestic violence.
Over the past seven years, Andrew has worked alongside Pippa Young and a range of IT developers to create case management and mobile software configured around the logics of the Signs of Safety approach. Currently Andrew is working with Pippa and Professor Eileen Munro in an English government funded, North Tyneside research project focused on the Child’s Voice and IT Transformation. Andrew has worked with Professor Eileen Munro for almost twenty years on whole system transformation and together they have co-authored five papers and numerous reports based on their collaborations.
This video prepared for the celebration of Andrew’s Order of Australia award provides offers the story of Andrew’s 40 years’ work in children’s service social work
Once upon a time in the west
This video describes the 30-year history of the development of the Signs of Safety through the words of many people from around the world who have shared the Signs of Safety journey with Andrew from when the approach first developed in Western Australia.
The documentary was prepared for the 30-year Signs of Safety Anniversary Celebration held on the Derbarl Yerrigan in February 2023, an event that also celebrated Andrew’s life time contributions to Child Protection Social Work when he received an Order of the Member of Australia Award.
