Secretariat

Since 1st of July 2011 Dr. Rory G Truell works as the Secretary General of the IFSW.

Before serving for IFSW as Secretary General, Dr. Truell has had a distinguished background as the CEO of a number of social development organizations. His career spans a number of years in the human services sector and he is a respected social work leader locally, nationally and internationally. His years at the New Zealand (NZ) Social Services Industry Training Organization represent his third time leading a major organization, having served previously as Executive Director and Professor of Social Work at the Te Wananga o Aotearoa and as Chief Executive of The NZ Institute of Training in Social Services.
Born in Northern Ireland, Dr. Truell has also been a Conflict Management Educator, a role funded by the Northern Ireland Peace and Reconciliation Commission; a Senior Lecturer in Counseling and Social Work, at the Central Institute of Technology (CIT), Senior Social Worker, Wellington Mental Health Services, and a Community Coordinator, in Wellington and Auckland, New Zealand.

As the CEO of The New Zealand Social Services Industry Training Organization, Dr. Truell has been recognized as a transformative leader, having increased that organizations funding from government, and gaining support from professional bodies and industry. In New Zealand he led the redevelopment of national qualification standards in Social Work and Youth development. He was also instrumental in developing the community-centered focus of the agency and chaired a collective of national bodies from the aged-care, disability, health and mental health and social service sectors to align to better meet the evolving needs of families and communities and produce measurable and meaningful outcomes in the lives of those served.

René Schegg joined IFSW as Policy and Communications Officer in October 2008. He increased his IFSW working hours to 70 % of full time from November 2009. He is the first point of contact following the retirement of the former Secretary General and pending the eventual appointment of a new chief executive following the IFSW General Meeting in June 2010.

René has a Master in Educational Studies with minors in social ethics and psychology. He has work experience in Argentina and Germany in addition to in his native Switzerland. René also holds another part time post as scientific collaborator in didactics at the University of Basel, Switzerland. In addition to his native language German, René speaks English, Spanish, French and Portuguese. He is also a trained computer administrator.

René has been working in project coordination of e-learning at the Universities of Zurich and Basel for three years. Before that he was involved in social work in Argentina and Switzerland, including work with disadvantaged children and young people, and served in the Swiss section of Amnesty International.

Since 2004 Myriam Schilling works as IFSW Secretary in the administration
of membership payments. On behalf of the Federation she distributes the
questionnaire and sends the yearly invoices to members. Myriam also
handles all book and publications orders.

Myriam has a diploma in Fashion-Design and still works as photographer,
illustrator and journalist for art and fashion. But most of her time she
spends with her family in Berne/ Switzerland.