Pam has been working with families and communities throughout her adult life, first as a maternal and child health nurse, and then as a social worker. Her first published poem ‘Benediction’ appeared in the Melbourne-based poetry journal Page Seventeen shortly before her 50th birthday. She returned to formal study a few years later and graduated in 2018 with a PhD. Her thesis focused on the ways that parents of children with high-level care needs understood their own relationships with complex service systems.
Now (almost) retired from social work education and research, Pam has turned her attention to other forms of writing. She is a volunteer biographer with Beyond Words, assisting people in aged care residences to write their life stories. She is also planning a new blog, which will take an autoethnographic approach to her transition into retirement.
Poem: ‘Shattered’. In Mona Magazine (2023) Issue 3.
Howard, A., Rawsthorne, M., Joseph, P., Terare, M., Sampson, D., & Katrak, M. (2023). Social work and human services responsibilities in a time of climate change : Country,community and complexity. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003146339
Joseph, P. (2023). “It’s All Public Anyway”: A Collaborative Navigation of Anonymity and Informed Consent in a Study with Identifiable Parent Carers. Ethics and Social Welfare, 17(2), 191–205. https://doi.org/10.1080/17496535.2023.2206671
Joseph, P. (2025). Connecting external and internal worlds: Environmental, spiritual, and social. In McVeigh, M. J.,Hollier, J., Ravulo, J., & Jo McVeigh, M. (2025). Understanding Spirituality and the Sacred in Social Work Practice: Spirited Conversations (1st ed., Vol. 1). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003400790