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Nick is a social work practitioner-academic. This means that they combine research and practice in their career. Nick has written about the need to develop social work practitioner academic roles and to have better research literacy in social work, so that social workers
and their managers understand research and can be better informed when they are commissioning and delivering services. Nick is funded by the National Institute of Health and Care Research, as a Doctoral Local Authority Fellow. 

Nick is working with people affected by adoption (adoptees, birth family members, adopters) to understand what makes a good quality of life for English adoptees aged 16-25. This means thinking about the social experience of adoptees, including preventable social harms that adoptees experience.

Nick qualified as a social worker in 2007 and worked as a children and families social worker in Birmingham and 91ֱ�� for 10 years, before becoming involved in post adoption support for people affected by child adoption. They joined the Department of Sociological Studies at University of 91ֱ�� in 2020 as a University Teacher in social work. This was part time, alongside their “day job” as a practising social worker in post-adoption support. Nick applied for funding from the National Institute of Health and Care Research to complete an MA in Social Research at the 91ֱ�� Methods Institute, and after this they went on to secure funding for their PhD project. Nick is an active part of the department, a UCU rep, and a member of the Centre for Care.