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.
Having been president in the 1960s of the Association of Child Care Officers, work for which she was appointed MBE in 1969, she became one of the key figures who set up the BASW in 1970. Her presidency in the mid-1980s later led her to take up the same role with the International Federation of Social Workers.
Janie was born in Harlesden, north-west London, to Jack Pratt, who worked at the furniture makers Wallaces, and Edith (nee Keefe). After attending Potter Street senior council school in Northwood, Middlesex, she took a post at the almoner’s office in a local cottage hospital as an untrained junior social worker.
She then had a period working for the International Refugee Organisation in Paris, before studying childcare and social work at the LSE and taking up her post at St George’s. From 1958 to 1961 she was also a Labour party member of Middlesex county council.
After returning from Hong Kong at the end of her career, Janie gained a PhD at Sussex University, and in retirement she was active in local political affairs in Brighton, where she provided input into planning applications and volunteered as secretary of the Kingscliffe Society, which campaigns on conservation issues in the city.
She was also a valued member of two Methodist churches in Brighton, Dorset Gardens and St Mary’s, both of which she attended regularly. She lived her life to the full, and spent much of it in generous service to others.
Janie married George Thomas, a social worker and later director of social services at the London borough of Harrow, in 1964. He died in 2016. She is survived by me and a grandson, Jake.
