My mother, Janie Thomas, a social worker and lecturer, who has died aged 95, became a leading light in the British Association of Social Workers (BASW), of which she was president from 1984 to 1986.
She began her career in 1955 at St George’s hospital, central London, before working with children and families at the London county council (LCC) and then the borough of Tower Hamlets. In 1964 she switched into academia, lecturing in social work at the London School of Economics (LSE) for more than a decade before finishing at Hong Kong Polytechnic (now the Hong Kong Polytechnic University) as a principal lecturer.
