About
Umut Yanardağ is a professor in the Department of Social Work, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Burdur Mehmet Akif Ersoy University. He holds a bachelor’s degree (2008) and a PhD (2017) in social work from Hacettepe University, and a master’s degree in human rights (2013) from Maltepe University.
Before joining academia he spent ten years in practice as a social worker. In 2008–2009 he worked for the Social Services and Child Protection Agency in Ankara and İstanbul, and then at Kartal Koşuyolu Heart Hospital (2009–2013), the Ministry of Health (2013), Ulucanlar Eye Training and Research Hospital (2013–2017) and Burdur State Hospital (2017–2018). He joined the university in 2018, became an associate professor in 2020 and a full professor in 2026.
His research focuses on digital social work, foster care and child welfare, ecological social work, social work with groups, and migration. Through Digital Social Services (DSS), the company he founded at MAKÜ BAKA Technopark in 2024, he develops digital solutions for the social work field.
In foster care and child protection he works with public institutions, international organisations and civil society. In 2025 he served as a short-term national consultant for UNICEF, developing a mentoring programme for emergency and temporary care. For the project on strengthening the foster care system in Türkiye, run by the Ministry of Family and Social Services and UNICEF, he developed training materials and trained staff and foster families. In his work with civil society organisations he has been a researcher and consultant on studies of how foster families were affected by disaster and on developing self-help groups for foster families.
As a student he was the founding president of the Social Work Students Association (2006–2008). He has served on the boards of the Turkish Association of Social Workers (2009–2017), the Haksen Confederation (2011–2017) and the Psycho-Oncology Association (2020–2023). He is a board member of the Association of Schools of Social Work and the Burdur Social Development Association, and a member of the International Association for Social Work with Groups, the İzmir Psychodrama Association and the Denizli Psychodrama Association. Since 2022 he has coordinated and taught in Shupervizyon, a professional supervision programme for social workers.
He is a psychodrama co-therapist (Abdülkadir Özbek Psychodrama Institute) and a family counsellor. He produces the YouTube channel Sosyal Hizmet TV and the Sosyal Çalışma Podcast, and coordinates the Village University (Köy Üniversitesi) project. Since 2021 he has been studying for a bachelor’s degree in music technology at the MAKÜ State Conservatory.