Malcolm Payne holds honorary professorial posts with Manchester Metropolitan University, where he was for many years professor and head of Applied Community Studies, and Kingston University London. He worked as a social worker and manager in probation, child and adult social care and in community, mental health and residential care development work in local and national voluntary organisations, and in social work education in the UK, Finland, Poland and Slovakia. Among his many books are Modern social work theory (5th edition, 2021), Humanistic social work, What is professional social work?, Citizenship social work with older people, and (edited with Emma Reith-Hall) The Routledge handbook of social work theory (2019).
