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Gavin Davidson

Keynote Speaker
Northern Ireland

Professor Gavin Davidson qualified as a social worker in 1995 and then worked for 12 years in mental health services in Northern Ireland, including as an Approved Social Worker under mental health law. He moved to Queen’s University Belfast in 2008 and his research is mainly in the area of mental health, specifically: the effectiveness of mental health services; the social determinants of mental health; human rights and mental health/mental capacity legislation; and the associations between trauma and mental health. In 2018 he was appointed as the first Praxis Chair of Social Care at Queen’s and many of his research projects are in partnership with Praxis, a service provider for people with mental health problems, intellectual disabilities and autism. His main teaching responsibility is as Programme Director for the Post-Graduate Diploma in Mental Health and Mental Capacity Law at Queen’s, which is provided through a partnership with the Health and Social Care Trusts. He is one of the social work representatives on the Department of Health’s Reference Group for the development and implementation of the Mental Capacity Act (Northern Ireland) 2016 which is an example of the fusion approach to providing a comprehensive legislative framework for all.