Dr. Yuval Saar-Heiman

My life before BGU:​

I was born and raised in Beer-Sheva. All three of my degrees – bachelor’s, master's, and PhD – are from the Spitzer Department of Social Work at Ben-Gurion University. For my doctorate, I studied the intersection of poverty and risk in children, as well as the implementation of poverty awareness in the child protection system. I did a postdoc at Royal Holloway University in London, where I focused on family inclusion policies, which entails participation and collaboration with parents of at-risk children in their treatment processes and shaping policies of the child protection system in England.

My rese​arch:

I study the ways in which poverty, inequality and social injustice affect families and children in at-risk situations. We usually think of child abuse and neglect as an expression of parental disfunction and think that the state’s role is to help parents change or to protect children when their parents cannot change. My research, in contrast, emphasizes the social aspects of this phenomenon and seeks to understand the proven link between poverty and abuse and neglect. I am a qualitative researcher (a proud alumni of the Israeli Center for Qualitative Research of People and Societies at BGU) and my research deals with: (a) understanding the way that poverty and social inequality create conditions that adversely affect the welfare of children and families and increase the chances of child protection services intervening in the lives of children (b) the ways in which interventions by social workers can counter social injustice, on the one hand, or exacerbate it, on the other, and (c) developing community interventions to support families and children and prevent abuse and neglect.

​Why BG​U?​​

My answer to the first question already makes it clear that Beer-Sheva is totally my home. Specifically, the Department of Social Work is where my professional identity as a social worker, and later as a researcher, developed. This is why I really wanted to return to it. I felt that the Department allows for the development of critical social work that integrates social justice approaches into its research and applied therapeutic work. My acquaintance with members of the Department (some of whom have been my teachers going back to my undergraduate degree) strengthened my desire to return.​​