Yvalia Febrer works tirelessly to upskill those training to work with children and young people across social care. She was the founding Programme Director of the Frontline Social Work programme, and since entering higher education has pushed forward the agenda for social pedagogy as a way to give those working with children a coherent value-base, knowledge and skillset. She has been described as a thought leader in the social pedagogy discourse, and co-chairs the Social Pedagogy Professional Association for the UK and Ireland. She is an editor on the Board of the International Journal of Social Pedagogy (UCL Press), and a founding member of the Global Alliance for Social Pedagogy and Social Education. She has partnered the Social Pedagogy Professional Association for the UK and Ireland with related disciplines’ professional associations, leading the way in cohering work with young people across social care, youth work and education.
Yvalia works as an Associate Professor of Social Work at Kingston University London, where she leads on student voice and experience for social work, education and midwifery students. She partners with regional and national employers to tangibly improve students’ employability skills, as well as creating and delivering social pedagogy programmes for students and practitioners. Her background is in child protection, where she worked across London local authorities responding to child abuse and neglect concerns. She has published in the areas of child attachment and child abuse, relationship-based practice with young people, citizenship education and social pedagogy.
Yvalia takes a leading role in equality, diversity and inclusion work, and is the founder of Kingston University’s first ever staff LGBTQ+ Network, where she initiated the institution’s collaboration with Stonewall as a Global Diversity Champion and led the university on its first Pride March at the capital’s 50th Pride in London. Yvalia continues to champion not just inclusion but the celebration of staff and student diversity, and to drive forward higher education’s role in upskilling social care practice with children and young people.