Sharanya is a double master degree holder in Social Work and Social Policy (Research). Prior to joining the University, she worked as a social worker and a qualitative researcher for rights based not-for-profit organisations. She has a range of social work field experiences including working with some of the most vulnerable communities in India such as the snake charmers, manual scavengers and domestic workers. Most of her social work was around doing rights based work that involved trying to understand the disparity between policy and ground realities and the layered challenges associated with policy implementation.
As a qualitative researcher, Sharanya has undertaken research projects with manual scavengers, studied the power of community engagement in the reduction of domestic violence and how burnout disproportionately affects social workers/case workers. Sharanya is currently working on a mixed methods applied research project funded by the West Midlands Applied Research Collaboration. The project aims to evaluate strengths based practices implemented by local authorities within adult social care.