The study funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), as part of UK Research and Innovation’s rapid response to Covid-19 aims to explore care leavers’ transitions to adulthood in the context of the pandemic. The study will inform understanding of the impact that Covid-19 has had on the timing of young people's transitions from care, where young people go ('transition pathways'), what services and support they receive, and how they fare.

View further information on the CCTC study

Young people’s perspectives on how we can support healthy child development after sexual abuse. This is a participatory action research project focusing on supporting mental health and wellbeing after sexual abuse in adolescence.

Over the last ten years TGC has developed methods and analytical frameworks to understand the quality of practice conversations that occur during social work supervision (Bostock et al, 2019; Wilkins et al, 2018). The evaluation aims to examine the quality of systemic practice in two types of practice encounters: 1) direct work with families during home visits in cases where children were the subject of a child in need or child protection plan and 2) supervision.

A collaborative change project that aims to embed Motivational Social Work in practice. The embedded research team employ both quantitative and qualitative methods, including direct observation of social work practice, child and parent interviews, and standardised measures to gather, analyse and feedback findings on practice quality and impact.

The mixed method study evaluated a whole-system multi-agency innovation in Children’s Services. Family Safeguarding Hertfordshire (FSH) is a whole-system reform of Children’s Services which aims to improve the quality of work undertaken with families, and thereby outcomes for children and parents. It brings together a partnership including the police, health (including mental health), probation and substance misuse services.

The evaluation consisted of three strands:

• Qualitative and quantitative data on the process of change (interviews, focus groups, structured observations and questionnaires from staff at three time points)
• Comparison of practice, service experiences and outcomes prior to, during and after FSH implementation. This involved observations of practice (104 of recorded and coded for skill), research interviews with parents shortly after allocation and 3 months later
• Analysis of a large dataset that included evidence on service use and outcomes for all children and parents in every family allocated in FSH.

The University of Bedfordshire, the University of Johannesburg and Queen’s University Belfast are convening a series of events that aim to bring together members of the African Network of Care Leaving Researchers (ANCR), International Research Network on Transitions to Adulthood from Care (INTRAC) and Community of Researchers in Transitions (CoRiT/PhD and MA students and recent post-doctoral students) to support the development of emerging researchers and research agendas aimed at improving outcomes for young adults without parental care in the Global South.

This project explores how organisational learning from research on self-neglect can be embedded by Safeguarding Adults Boards (SABs). Taking a co-production approach, a learning set with representatives from 8 Boards will generate, implement and review action plans to embed research learning on self-neglect in the day-to-day practice and structures of relevant agencies.

The National Female Genital Mutilation Centre (NFGMC) aims to achieve a system change in the provision of services for children and families who are affected by Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), abuse linked to faith or belief, and breast ironing and flattening. The evaluation adopts a mixed methods approach to collate and triangulate sources of both quantitative and qualitative data in order to evaluate the cost and consequences of implementing NFGMC’s model of delivery to prevent and response to cases of FGM and Harmful Practices.

F2FP is an ambitious programme of change designed to integrate co-production, needs-responsive access to services and systemic interventions to support successful transition to adulthood to improve life chances for young people in Havering. It aims to develop practice that is relationship-based, co-produced and personalised to the needs of children and young people. A mixed methods evaluation is being undertaking, including in-depth case studies of young people leaving care.

Reclaiming Social Work (RSW) is a whole-system reform that aims to deliver systemic practice in children’s services. Key elements include in-depth training, small units with shared cases and group systemic case discussions, clinician support, reduced bureaucracy, devolved decision-making and enhanced administrative support. The evaluation will explore the longer term impact of RSW on outcomes for children and families.

Bexley, Greenwich and Lewisham have successfully secured ‘safeguarding early adopter’ funding from the Department for Education to support them to test new children’s safeguarding partnership arrangements. The evaluation is a multi-method, including interviews with key stakeholders, structured feedback from participants at learning events and observations of ‘learning hub’ and ‘deep dive’ meetings.

Working in co-production with a group of disabled parents the project:

• Explored disabled parents’ experiences of statutory assessments in children’s social care services and subsequent service provision, including examination of a) the assessment pathway (how parents access support) b) the assessment itself (thresholds and eligibility criteria) c) principles guiding the assessment, and how these were experienced by disabled parents.
• Drew on disabled parents, child and family social workers and researchers’ knowledge and expertise to re-imagine how children’s and adults’ social care might deliver holistic services which value the needs, assets and rights of the whole family.

Ealing’s Brighter Futures Intensive Engagement Model is a complex, whole system intervention. Its implementation was intended to support and enable the children’s social care workforce to build effective, consistent relationships with adolescents, families, communities and carers, and to use those successful relationships to bring about positive change.

A mixed methods approach was employed, including: baseline and follow up interviews with strategic and operational managers, focus groups with social work teams, surveys and interviews with young people, foster carers and lead professionals and use of social network analysis to explore relational connections in a sample of cases.

The mixed method study evaluated a whole-system reform of Children’s Services by a partnership between a social enterprise, Morning Lane Associates and five local authorities. Reclaiming Social Work (RSW) is a whole-system reform that aims to deliver clinical support, group case discussions, devolved decision-making and enhanced administrative support.

The following data were collected:

• Data on the process of change from the perspective of key stakeholders
• A comparison of practice, service experiences and outcomes between RSW units and service as usual, drawing on coded observations of direct practice with families, research interviews with families and computerized records

Case study data on Keeping Families Together (KFT) units, including interviews with staff, observations of direct practice, interviews with family members and secondary analysis of fata on children young people receiving a KFT service to prove an indication of impact on care entry and potential cost saving.

About the research

The Equality Act protects people with certain characteristics against discrimination. One of these characteristics is disability. While other mental health conditions are included as disabilities in the Act, alcohol dependence which is officially classified as a mental health condition, is explicitly excluded.

We received funding from Research England to work with Alcohol Change UK and the Alcohol Health Alliance to co-design and co-deliver a cross-sector, round table meeting on the exclusion of alcohol dependence from the Equality Act. The meeting drew together a broad range of academic and non-academic partners with different perspectives and areas of expertise. It was chaired by Lord Carlile of Berriew CBE, QC. Attendees (12 in total) included representatives from both Houses of Parliament as well as experts from the alcohol treatment sector, trade unions, human resources, addictions, disability, law and experts-by-experience.

The meeting provided a platform for the exchange of knowledge and discussion. We presented evidence from our research which supports the removal of the exclusion clause. This includes the findings from a citizen’s jury, a literature review on alcohol dependence and disability, and a document analysis of discrimination law in other countries. We also heard from people with lived experience how discrimination manifests in the workplace and from experts from the alcohol treatment sector how people with alcohol dependence are discriminated against in public services. An HR consultant told us that some employers already treat alcohol dependence as if it is included in the Equality Act (demonstrating that including alcohol dependence in the Equality Act is workable). There was an informative and fruitful discussion after which all the attendees concluded that the exclusion clause should be removed.

This work is ongoing.

Project staff

Dr Sarah Wadd, University of Bedfordshire
Maureen Dutton, University of Bedfordshire

About the research

With funding from the Society for the Study of Addiction and People with a history of alcohol and drug (substance) dependence are heavily discriminated against, even if they have stopped drinking or taking drugs. There is growing evidence that this discrimination contributes to unemployment, homelessness, health inequalities and premature death. Great Britain’s Equality Act (2010) protects people with certain characteristics against discrimination, harassment or victimisation in the workplace and private and public services. One of these characteristics is disability. Substance dependence is classified as a mental health condition, but while other mental health conditions are included as disabilities in the Act, “addiction to alcohol, nicotine or any other substance” is expressly excluded. This means that it is lawful to discriminate against someone on the basis of current or past alcohol dependence.

A citizens’ jury is a small group of citizens, reflective of the demographics of the population, that come together to reach a collective decision on a policy issue through informed deliberation. In this study, we facilitated a citizens’ jury to find out whether a group of citizens thinks that alcohol dependence should be excluded from the definition of disability for the purposes of the Equality Act. We chose to focus on alcohol dependence because other drug use is illegal. This means that there are legal issues in drug use which would benefit from detailed examination in a separate citizens’ jury.

You can read about the study and the findings of the study in the Citizens Jury Project Report [PDF] and Policy Brief [PDF]

Project staff:

Dr Sarah Wadd, University of Bedfordshire

About the reseach

The Drink Wise, Age Well programme supported people to make healthier choices about alcohol as they age. Funded by The National Lottery Community Fund, the programme was based in five regions across the UK from 2015 to 2020. The programme was designed to change attitudes, combat stigma and reduce alcohol harm in the over 50s so they can live longer, healthier lives. The University of Bedfordshire led the research and evaluation for the programme. You can find out more about this project and read the evaluation and other reports on Drink Wise, Age Well - Professional resources

Project staff:

• Dr Sarah Wadd, University of Bedfordshire
• Michelle McCann, University of Bedfordshire
• Maureen Dutton, University of Bedfordshire
• Dr Jenny Seddon, University of Bedfordshire
• Professor Lawrie Elliott, Edinburgh Napier University
• Dr Paulina Trevena, Edinburgh Napier University
• Dr Laura Adnum, Glasgow Caledonian University
• Professor Iolo Madoc-Jones, Wrexham Glyndwr University
• Fiona Wilson, Wrexham Glyndwr University
• Professor Michael Donnelly, Queen’s University Belfast
• Dr Ciara Close, Queen’s University Belfast

About the research

With funding from Alcohol Change UK, we carried out a study on Wet’ care homes for older people with refractory alcohol problems. ‘Wet’ care homes are care homes where people with severe and chronic (refractory) alcohol dependence are allowed to drink as much as they want on the premises but residents are encouraged to reduce their drinking or drink in a less harmful way. Wet care homes are based on a harm reduction philosophy, that is, they focus on strategies to reduce harm from high-risk alcohol use, rather than insisting on abstinence.

You can read about the findings of the project on Alcohol Change UK

Project staff:

• Dr Sarah Wadd, University of Bedfordshire
• Michelle McCann, University of Bedfordshire
• Gill Crofts, Independent Researcher