Staff profile

Catrin joined Durham University Sociology Department as a Lecturer in Social Work in 2023. She convenes the Master of Social Work Year 1 module ‘Social Work in Practice’ and co-convenes the UG Sociology Year 1 module ‘Societies in Transition’. Catrin is a qualified social worker, having completed the Master of Social Work (MSW) programme at Durham University in 2019.

Catrin completed her ESRC NINE DTP funded PhD in 2023 in collaboration with an adult day centre in the Northeast of England. The research explored older people’s experiences of loneliness in the context of the day centre using a Participatory Action Research approach and developed the term ‘community loneliness’ to capture the relational, political and dynamic nature of loneliness in old age.

Catrin is interested in critical loneliness research, community-based participatory research with older people and critical gerontological social work. Her research brings together the topics of relationships and relational practices, community and identity, social practices and activities, and macro politics in researching loneliness and gerontology to challenge the individualised narrative that still dominates the respective research areas.

Catrin is a longstanding member of the BASW UK Network for Social Work Practitioner Research, where she continues to coproduce research with social work practitioners and academics. Catrin also co-founded the Early Career Loneliness Research Network in 2020 which promotes the presentation and critical discussion of international loneliness research. 

Follow me on Twitter: @catrinnoone

Research Group

• Communities and Social Justice

• Centre for Social Justice and Community Action

Research Interests

• Loneliness in old age
• Community-based responses to loneliness
• Critical social gerontology
• Gerontological social work
• Participatory methodologies

• Loneliness
• Community-based responses to loneliness
• Critical social gerontology
• Participatory methodologies - Participatory Action Research

Journal Article

• Noone, C., & McKenna-Plumley, P. E. (2022). Lonely for Touch? A Narrative Review on the Role of Touch in Loneliness. Behaviour Change, 39(3), 157-167. https://doi.org/10.1017/bec.2022.12
• Kong, S., Noone, C., & Shears, J. (2022). Social Workers’ Sensual Bodies during COVID-19: The Suspended, Displaced and Reconstituted Body in Social Work Practice. The British Journal of Social Work, 52(5), 2834-2853. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcab207
• Noone, C., & Yang, K. (2021). Community‐based responses to loneliness in older people: A systematic review of qualitative studies. Health and Social Care in the Community, https://doi.org/10.1111/hsc.13682

Report

• Kong, S., Noone, C., Quintana, A., Pharoah, C., Wills, D., Shears, J., …Hawkes, S. (2021). Social Work During Covid-19: Learning for the Future Challenges, Best Practice and Professional Transformation. British Association of Social Workers