Dr Eileen Munro is Reader in Social Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She has written widely on child protection, using a systems approach to investigate child abuse, child poverty, risk assessment, parenting and social work more generally.

Dr Munro has worked as a professional psychiatric social worker, undertaking consultancy work with child protection services in the US, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, with particular emphasis on risk management and learning from errors. She has also been invited to give evidence to the Parliamentary Select Committee on Education and Skills, to attend Cabinet Office seminars on child protection, and to meet with government policy advisers to discuss future developments. She is working with the Social Care Institute for Excellence in studying how a systems approach to understanding errors can be applied in child protection services. She is frequently consulted by radio, television and newspaper reporters, and has given many media interviews. Her recent teaching includes courses on research methods at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

Her current research is examining the impact of organisational structure and culture on front-line work, with particular focus on the features that help and hinder good quality judgement and decision-making.  In partnership with the Social Care Institute for Excellence, she is adapting and piloting the systems approach to understanding errors developed in other high risk areas of work such as aviation and anaesthesia. The issue is particularly topical in the UK at present because the government has ambitious plans to re-organise and transform children’s services, with the aim of improving outcomes for all children while continuing to improve child protection service for those who are abused or neglected by their carers. 

She has had a long-term interest in developing critical reasoning skills in social workers, and has recently finished a textbook for Sage Publications outlining the basic skills and knowledge needed to practise critically in child protection work.
She is now established as an expert in the field of child protection, both nationally and internationally, and has made numerous keynote presentations at national and international conferences. Her understanding of the realities of front-line work is kept up to date by regular commitments to provide training on risk assessment and decision-making to child protection teams.