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CQSW PhD (Brist) CertWSt (Open)Anita Gibbs image

Contact details

Room 6C17, Richardson Building
Tel +64 3 479 5677
Email anita.gibbs@otago.ac.nz

Anita trained as a social worker in the UK and worked in criminal justice, notably probation.

She completed her PhD at the University of Bristol and after postdoctoral research at the University of Oxford she moved to Otago in 1999.

She has taught numerous social work, sociology and criminology courses since with a particular interest in teaching in the area of families. Her research studies have included electronic monitoring, mental health, adoption, transcultural parenting, defining social work research, making social work accessible to sociologists, auto-ethnography, fetal alcohol spectrum disorder and its impact on families, and the scholarship of publication.

Anita is a registered social worker and facilitates a parent support group for families where FASD is an issue.

Teaching

I co-ordinate and teach:

Postgraduate supervision

  • Adoption
  • Fostering
  • FASD (Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder)
  • Qualitative Research
  • Social Work Research
  • Family Welfare and Policy
  • Hidden/Invisible Disabilities

Current and recent students

  • Jo VanWyk (PhD) – The immediate and ongoing information needs of individuals diagnosed with FASD and the families and professionals who support them: Stakeholder perceptions and experiences of information seeking, finding and sharing
  • Natasha Jolly (PhD) – An analysis of the efficacy and historical accountability of post-war/conflict transitional justice with specific focus on sexual and gender-based violence
  • Hamuera Tyrin Tutaki (MA) – Matauranga Māori approaches to retail crime
  • Jamie Crook (MA) – Criminalisation and labelling of Covid “anti-vaxxers”
  • Isaac Bishop (BMedSc) – FASD and health professionals’ skills and knowledge – improving practice
  • Maia Cameron (Honours) – The ramraid rampage of our iwi youth: A modern moral panic?
  • Liz Denton (Honours) – Attention Deficit Disorder and Aotearoa New Zealand social work

Publications

Gibbs, A. (2024, May). AVITH in context: Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD). Webinar presentation for the Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare [Online]. [Research Presentation]. Other Research Output

Gibbs, A. (2024). Is there light at the end of the tunnel? Proceedings of the National Organisation for Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (NOFASD) Australia: The FASD Forum. Retrieved from https://www.nofasd.org.au/ Conference Contribution - Published proceedings: Abstract

Milne, K., Henderson, L., Gibbs, A., & Chu, J.T.W. (2024, March). Setting our tertiary students up for success. Webinar presentation for the New Zealand Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder Care Action Network (FASD-CAN). [Research Presentation]. Other Research Output

Gibbs, A. (2024). ‘No one believed us: no one came to help’: Caregivers' experiences of violence and abuse involving children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1002/anzf.1575 Journal - Research Article

Gibbs, A., Flanagan, J., & Gray, L. (2024). An Australian online training and support program for caregivers of children and youth with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder: Families linking with families. Journal of Intellectual & Developmental Disability, 49(2), 175-185. doi: 10.3109/13668250.2023.2271757 Journal - Research Article

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