Salome Namitcheishvili is a co-founder, board member and former chairperson (2008-2013) of Georgian Association of Social Workers. She is committed to the social work development in her role as a social work activist and one of the first pioneer qualified social workers in Georgia.
She is a first PhD in Social Work from Tbilisi State University (2016) in Georgia, and a graduate with a Master of Science degree in Social Work from Columbia University in the city of New York (2003). She has 13 years of experience supporting the development of social work in Georgia through policy, administrative, research and direct work practice with various stakeholders, including government, NGO community and service users. Her main fields of expertise pertain social work systems development in child protection, domestic violence, housing and criminal justice fields. She has been actively supporting Government of Georgia to develop social policies and services for various vulnerable groups of population, including children, youth, families, women, people with disability, homelessness and offenders. She became 2012 Georgian Nominee for Secretary of State’s International Women of Courage Award. Ms. Namicheishvili was honored for challenging accepted cultural practices and breaking political barriers to advocate for human rights, social justice and women’s equality and for improving the practice of social work in Georgia. Since 2014 she has been an elected Vice President of IFSW, Europe. In her role she is very active in supporting social work developments in Post-Soviet countries as well as leads the Social Work Role and Identity Research Study in Europe. She is an assistant professor of Social Work at Tbilisi State University who has contributed to social work academic program development at the University and is involved in teaching social work internationally.