Eileen Joy

I am a registered social worker and Professional teaching fellow at the University of Auckland. I am also an Honorary Academic at the University of Waikato.

My Doctoral research involved looking at how recent advances in child development knowledge (neuroscience, epigenetics and the developmental origins of health and disease - and developmental psychology more broadly) were operationalised in child protection practice and policy in Aotearoa during the 2010s. This research involved consideration for how policy and practice favoured a social investment approach while excluding and marginalising Mātauranga Māori, and blamed parents, especially mothers, for structural oppressions like colonisation, poverty, and misogyny.

I am particularly interested in how parents, particularly mothers, are blamed in child protection and parenting discourses more broadly. Recent work includes consideration for how substance using mothers are particularly demonised in child welfare.

My research interests and focus areas also include sex, gender, and sexuality. I spent two years with Waikato University as a Research Fellow considering the experiences of people with variations in sex characteristics (intersex) and have published material related to this.

I currently teach into the Bachelor of Social Work and Masters of Social Work Professional programs at the University of Auckland and I am a member of the Aotearoa New Zealand Social Work Journal editorial committee.