Steph - Trustee

Steph Langley became a Trustee in May 2021.  She was born and brought up in Bournemouth.  After some years as a youth and community worker and volunteer youth counsellor, Steph trained as a social worker and one of her placements was in a secondary treatment centre in Bournemouth.  Once qualified, Steph became the Assistant Manager at a local Children’s Home before going to work in a Drug and Alcohol Service in Winchester as one of the social workers in a multi-disciplinary team.      

At the same time as working full time, and having two children,  Steph embarked on a Masters Degree in Advanced Social Work Studies and a PQ Advanced Award.  In 2001 Steph went to work for Hampshire Children’s Services in their professional development team.  From there, Steph started teaching on the social work progamme  at University of Reading, where she remained for 3 years, prior to starting her current post, at University of Winchester where she is a Senior Lecturer and Programme Lead for the MSc in Social Work.  Steph has always been interested in addiction studies and in issues of inequality, marginalization, human rights and social justice.   

The covid pandemic has shown us that homelessness can start to be tackled but much much more needs to be done to address the root causes, the role of the State needs to be challenged urgently – as inequality is at an all time high, with implications for mental health, physical health and consequences for society generally.  We need to support vulnerable  people to become part of society once more and to develop relationship based practice; the Soup Kitchen, led by Meryl Praill, is very good at engaging with and supporting people who are in great need and in helping people to turn their lives around. Steph feels very proud to be part of this exceptional charity that works so hard to support individuals to achieve their goals in what has become a highly blaming and unequal society.    Steph has two daughters, two cats and a husband (nothing I implied by the order as it reads!).  She has lived in Newbury for over 30 years.