Christine Harrison

Emeritus Professor Christine Harrison

Christine Harrison is Emeritus Professor of Social Work in the Centre for Lifelong Learning . She has a practice history in child protection and worked for a number of years as a Children’s Guardian. She has a strong history in teaching and learning in the discipline of social work and in cross-disciplinary settings in and beyond the University, and has designed, delivered and evaluated social work programmes and modules. She co-ordinated and taught child care and child protection social work at undergraduate, postgraduate, qualifying and post-qualifying levels for over 30 years (including in Australia, China, Iceland, Taiwan, Jordan and Romania). She also regularly taught on programmes for other professionals, including health professionals, teachers, and policy makers about different forms of violence against women.

Professor Harrison has been a researcher in the field of domestic violence and abuse for a number of years and was part of the project team of a European network, Growing up Free from Violence and Abuse (GUFOVA) that devised training materials for statutory and voluntary sector workers in a number of countries about children and domestic violence. She has worked with Professor Ravi Thiara (Sociology) preparing reviews for Women’s Aid England and they are collaborating on a book about post-separation violence and abuse based on their research and that of others.

Professor Harrison is a Director of STAMP Film and Media Productions, a Community Interest Company that works collaboratively with researchers and artists to create art events about health and well-being.

For the past five years she has been a Trustee and more recently Chair of the Board of Trustees at Murray Hall Community Trust, a non-governmental organisation based in Sandwell and the Black Country, which provides community-based services to challenge health inequalities and promote health and wellbeing.

Selected recent publications and reports (reverse date order)

Thiara, R.K., Harrison, C. and Chung (eds.) (forthcoming, 2026)‘It’s never over’ Post-Separation Violence in lives of women survivors. London, Routledge.

Thiara, R.K. and Harrison, C. (2021)Reframing the Links: Black and minoritised women, domestic violence and abuse, and mental health - A Review of the Literature. Bristol: Women’s Aid.

Thiara, R. and Harrison, C. (2016)Safe not Sorry: Supporting the campaign for safer child contact. Key issues raised by research on child contact and domestic violence. Bristol, Women’s Aid.

Harrison, C. and Thiara, R. (2014)‘I feel privileged to have done it and bereft it has finished’. An evaluation of the Gateway Programme. University of Warwick, Centre for the Study of Safety and Wellbeing.

Harrison, C. and Thiara, R, (2012) ‘Children and young people affected by domestic violence: the role of schools in promoting safety, wellbeing and protection’, in Purdy, N. (ed)Pastoral Care 11-16: A Critical Introduction. London, Bloomsbury Academic.

Harrison, C. and North, R. (2010) Survivors Trust Briefing Paper 3. Sexual abuse and violence in the UK the experiences of marginalised groups, Rugby, The Survivors Trust.

Harrison, C. and North, R. (2010) Survivors Trust Briefing Paper 2: Sexual abuse and violence in the UK: an overview, Rugby, The Survivors Trust.

Harrison, C. (2008) ‘Implacably hostile or appropriately protective? Women managing child contact in the context of domestic violence’, Violence Against Women,14 (4): 381-405.

Harrison, C., and Aris, R. (2007) 'Domestic Violence and the Supplemental Information Form C1A', London, Ministry of Justice.

Harrison, C. (2005) ‘Damned if you do and damned if you don’t. The contradictions between private and public law’ in Humphreys, C. and Stanley, N. (eds)Child Protection and Domestic Violence: Directions for Good Practice. London, Jessica Kingsley.