Julia Swallow Edwards

Julia Swallow Edwards is a current Lecturer at Cardiff Metropolitan University, teaching on their professionally endorsed Youth and Community Work Foundation and Degree programmes. Julia has a keen interest in policy development, collaborative working and management, with these being key aspects of the modules she is responsible for. Julia undertook a comparative analysis of the value of youth work in schools between teaching and youth work professionals for her masters dissertation and recently had a case study on strengths based approaches in youth work published. 

Julia began her youth work career 28 years ago, volunteering for Youthlink Wales as a young person. Since then, she has worked in a wide range of settings, including youth clubs, street-based provision, youth justice services and prisons, schools and alternative education. She has experience of managing externally funded projects and after completing her teacher training, Julia delivered Youth Support Work Qualification’s in the community, eventually joining the university as a full time lecturer in 2022. 

Julia is passionate about mentoring and collaborative inquiry, recognising the positive impact inspirational mentors have had on her growth and career progression. She hopes to continue with the ripple effect of supporting others. 

In her spare time Julia enjoys spending time with family and friends, music gigs and running (which she refers to as plodding). She is currently training for Snowdon Marathon 2024, after completing this for the first time in 2023.