She began working as a volunteer for the Time and Talents settlement in Bermondsey and supported families affected by illness, poverty, slum housing and overcrowding.
Russell was employed as the community service organiser on Lewisham's Honor Oak housing estate in 1937 and became the warden of the mixed-sex Archers Youth Centre in Southampton during the Second World War.
She was appointed the chief administrator of five one-year emergency courses run by the Institute of Almoners in 1945 before becoming a practical work organiser and then as a senior lecturer of the London School of Economics (her alma mater) from 1949 to 1973.
[1] Russell remained as president of the LSE Society for several years, continued her involvement with the relaunch of the Time and Talents charity in Rotherhithe, East London and helped to launch the National Tenants' Resource Centre in Chester.
[3][4] She drafted and distributed via post a detailed questionnaire to 2000 previous LSE social administration students, and largely by personal follow-up, received a 90 per cent response and it was all complied into the 1981 book Changing Course.