Helen Cleak’s substantial contribution to social work education, practice and scholarship in Australia and internationally is well known and it will have a lasting impact. In addition to her practice and publishing achievements, Helen played a pivotal role within the Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW), including serving on National University Accreditation Panels, and on the Editorial Board of Australian Social Work.
Helen contributed to the Journal of Australian Social Work as an Editorial Board member, a Reviewer of submitted manuscripts, and as an author. It was a privilege to have Helen serve as a member of the Editorial Board of Australian Social Work over the past seven years, where she shared her expertise and worked to ensure high-quality publication standards. Many of us on the Editorial Board worked with Helen in different roles over the years. Helen is known as a champion for social work goals and values and as someone who gets the job done. If there was a need to raise issues of concern or form a working group to progress a project, Helen could always be relied on to participate and advocate. Quite recently Helen volunteered to be part of the selection panel for new members of the Editorial Board.
Helen has a distinguished list of publications in Australian and international journals and she has contributed greatly to the advancement of social work knowledge, particularly in relation to student field placement learning and as a grassroots facilitator of practice-based research projects. Whilst an accomplished academic, the reality of frontline social work practice remained clear in Helen’s mind. Guiding the effective preparation of students for social work practice and supporting social workers on the frontline to contribute knowledge to the profession were ways in which she worked to integrate the scholarship and practice of social work. A recent example of this integrated scholarship is her co-authorship role in a research article that won the Norm Smith Australian Social Work journal publication award for 2022.
Most importantly, Helen will be remembered as a skilled mentor, and a source of inspiration to many people who knew her. Her commitment to excellence, her passion for social work, and her unwavering dedication to social work education will be sorely missed. Colleagues and friends found Helen to be a good, kind and fun-loving person, and a great friend. Helen was generous with positive feedback, energetic, welcoming and inclusive of new members on the Editorial Board, honest with offering challenges and critiques, and always ready for a chat and a laugh in her own down-to-earth way. We are grateful for all that Helen has contributed to Australian social work and we will miss her very much.
We offer our condolences to Helen's family, friends, and loved ones. In mourning her passing, we remember the incredible legacy she leaves behind, one that will continue to shape the field of social work for years to come.
Vale, our friend and colleague, Helen Cleak.