Dr. Rika Swanzen

Biography

Dr Swanzen is the Research Manager for IIEMSA and the previous Programme Manager for the School of Social Sciences. She has been developing and teaching in the field of Child and Youth Care since 2009, joining the then Monash South Africa fulltime as course coordinator and lecturer in 2010. Prior to moving into academia, she worked in child and family welfare, adolescent mental health, community development, residential care, foster care training and practice model development. During her working career she obtained her Masters degree in clinical Social Work cum laude, and completed her doctoral study through the development of ChildPIE©; a classification system for describing childhood social functioning problems, in 2006. During her doctoral studies she managed her private practice were she specialised in challenging adolescent behaviour and marital- and divorce councelling. Since her studies she also served as the Project Manager on national and provincial level research projects; focusing on supporting orphaned and vulnerable children in communities and on the effectiveness of diversion programmes for youth in conflict of the law, respectively. Dr Swanzen held the position of Adjunct Associate Professor with the Caulfield campus of Monash University from 2015-2017. In 2016 she was appointed by the Minister of Social Development as Council Member, for a 6-year term, to represent education and training on the South African Council for Social Service Professions. Between 2007 and 2021 she authored 19 peer-reviewed publications and made 20 presentations at international conferences. Detail of her publications can be viewed on LinkedIn and Orcid.