Tribute to social worker who was inspired to help others by grandfather’s Holocaust diaries
Published by Professional Social Work magazine, 17 August, 2023
Rena Phillips, one of the original members of BASW after its creation in 1970, has died aged 82.
Rena was a researcher and practitioner specialising in the needs of children and families separated from each other through fostering, adoption, post-separation/divorce and post-adoption services.
Rena studied law at Manchester University where she met her husband, Bill Phillips. She went on to do a postgraduate diploma in social studies at London University and an MSc in applied social research at Stirling University.
In 1973 Rena started working for Stirling Council as a social worker and in the 1980s as a senior social worker in home finding and adoption, her specialist area of research and study. It is in this capacity that most colleagues will remember her work both in research and practice before she joined the staff at Stirling University.
She was able to achieve a balance between research and practice that made her research findings so important to the children and families who benefited from her skills and experience.
In 2002 Rena left Stirling University and became an independent practitioner and consultant, a role which she pursued for the next 20 years. Her legacy of work in post-adoption partnerships is as relevant today as when it was first published. Her steady output and sharing of knowledge remains a resource for social workers to read and share.
Rena was an active member of the Forth Valley Branch of BASW and the wider organisation, engaging in professional debate and campaigning for change. While many will remember Rena for the outstanding contribution she made over years in working with children and families, she also had a very strong interest in human rights and social justice, rooted in her family’s experiences. Asylum seekers, refugees and the Palestinian people were particularly important to her.
This was underlined when Rena made a moving contribution to BASW’s Heritage Project in 2020 to celebrate 50 years of the association by sharing extracts from her grandfather Chaim Kaplan’s diary Scroll of Agony written between 1939 and 1942 in the Warsaw Ghetto before he perished in Treblinka concentration camp.
The circumstances in which Rena’s family came to the UK shaped her contribution to social work and the profession’s role in our communities. In a recorded introduction to the diaries, she identifies her connection with her grandfather as someone who was not afraid to speak up, saying “he bore witness, he persevered, and he was true to himself”.
Rena’s grandfather endured the most dehumanising experiences, but even when he had not eaten for eight days he kept on writing. He knew that keeping a diary was dangerous - he was urged by those around him to consider his and other people’s safety. But he persevered.
In her introduction to his diaries, Rena quotes Chaim who wrote: “Even though we are now undergoing terrible tribulations and the sun has grown dark for us at noon, we have not lost our hope that the era of light will surely come.”
Rena said of her grandfather: “What a role model for me as a human being, as a person, as a social worker.”
Just as Chaim Kaplan left a legacy to his granddaughter, so Rena leaves us the legacy of her witness, perseverance and integrity.
Julia Ross, chair of BASW, said: “Rena Phillips was one of those outstanding women on whom the foundations of social work and our social work profession as we experience it today was built and is sustained.
"We owe her and her work on the balance between research and practice a deep debt of gratitude, as do the many children and families who have benefited from her professionalism over many years.”
Scottish Association of Social Work colleague Ronnie Barnes said: “Rena Phillips was an inspiration to her generation of social workers and her work in the field of adoption was groundbreaking. As a committed BASW member, she upheld the role of the association in her social work career and promoted its importance to the profession as a whole. Her legacy will live on through her long association with Stirling University.”
Former BASW chief executive Ian Johnston, referred to Rena's seminal BAAF publication Children Exposed to Parental Substance Misuse: Implications for Family Placements. He added: "This work has and will continue to inform professional social practice in Scotland, where regrettably the early life experience of too many children continues to be marred by drug abuse."
Befitting of her love, care and compassion for others, Rena was surrounded by her family during her final days. She died on the morning of 24 July and a celebration of her life will be held at Stirling University on Saturday 2 September.
She is survived by her husband of 63 years Professor Bill Phillips, their three children and a formidable body of research that will continue to be a resource for the profession.
If you would like to attend the celebration of Rena’s life at Stirling University on Saturday, 2 September, please contact Bill Phillips for further details at wap1@stir.ac.uk.
With thanks to Ruth Stark