Lavina is a CORU registered Social Worker 005092 with 17 years of experience in the field of child protection and welfare social work in Tusla, previously HSE, in a variety of social work and management roles across the areas of assessment, safety planning, children in care and fostering. Lavina has experience of people management, supervision, auditing, file reviews, committee involvement, supporting students and new graduates and performance improvement processes.

When Tusla adopted Signs of Safety as its’ national approach to practice in 2017, Lavina stepped into the role of a practice lead for Signs of Safety. This role involved leading and supporting significant changes to the practice of assessment and safety planning in the agency. Over her 7 years in this post, Lavina provided consultative practice support on some of the most complex cases held by the teams she was supporting. Primarily this involved assessment, safety planning and reunification planning in the context of complex cumulative harm, child sexual abuse and domestic violence. In this role Lavina also led in the development and facilitation of training, practice based workshops and Signs of Safety briefings for frontline child protection teams, management groups, external stakeholders and third level students. Prior to working with Signs of Safety, Lavina facilitated attachment training for frontline social workers.

Lavina has experience in social work supervision having been a team manager for a number of years prior to taking on the practice lead role she most recently held and practices reflective, systemic supervision. In addition, Lavina is experienced in reflective practice, both 1-1 and in groups. This extends to the training room where Lavina has skills and experience in providing tailored training and workshops that privileges reflective and reflexive practice-based work in the room.

Lavina has worked with families, for 21 years, from a diverse variety of backgrounds, cultures, class, ethnicities and particularly enjoys working directly with children and teenagers. Having completed training in forensic child interviewing, attachment training and holding a considered developmental and attachment lens in her work Lavina has consistently received positive feedback from children and families over the years about her direct work with young people.

Through her work in Signs of Safety Lavina has a unique experience and a deep interest in helping parents and caregivers find ways of helping their children understand problems and experiences that adults often struggle to find language for that makes sense for the child. Lavina has often led the practice of this type of work using the Signs of Safety Words and Pictures tool based on narrative storyboard techniques.

Over the past 18 months in her work in the Child and Family Agency, Lavina’s practice was centred in the field of domestic violence and coercive control. She has completed the Safe & Together Core Training. She was lead writer on “Domestic Violence Informed Practice: Guidance for Practitioners”, the first agency practice guidance for working in assessment and safety planning where there are worries about domestic abuse and coercive control in families. Lavina presented in 2023 at the IASW/BASW-NI Domestic Violence Conference, leading an interagency parallel session on working with mothers who have experienced domestic abuse and has particular strength in the assessment of the impact of coercive control on children.

Lavina is currently in her final year of a MSc in Systemic Psychotherapy with the Clanwilliam Institute and in that context is completing a part time internship in a child sexual abuse service having working in that setting as part of a training team the previous year.

Lavina is bringing those decades of experience of working with systems, child protection processes, leading practice change in assessment work and working directly with children and families alongside her systemic psychotherapy training (ongoing, pre-accredited) to work independently in 2025. Please see Services Provided.