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Research conducted at UEL on the protection, participation and welfare of children living in difficult circumstances in the aftermath of conflict and in contexts of urban and rural poverty has had wide-ranging impacts on international policy and practice. Benefits have arisen particularly from its influence on national policies for orphans and vulnerable children in Rwanda; on international professional standards and `best practice'; and on legal asylum in the USA. It has been used directly by governmental policymakers in Rwanda and Bangladesh and aid organisations in Africa and Asia, and has formed the basis for the development of new learning and advocacy resources used to improve the services offered by social work professionals in Africa, Asia and the UK. Through its direct impact on these individuals and organisations, the research has delivered indirect benefits to millions of children and adults around the world.
Research by Dr Una Convery and Dr Linda Moore (respectively Lecturer and Senior Lecturer in Criminology) has significantly influenced rights-compliance in policy, legislation and practice regarding youth custody in Northern Ireland and beyond. Most notably, it impacted decisively on the development of innovative regimes and policies at NI's only custodial centre for children and improved their conditions. It also influenced decisions on reduced custodial levels and the removal of children from the penal system. By providing a solid evidence base, utilised by lobbyists and political representatives, the research influenced the inclusion of independent reviews of the penal and youth justice systems within the multi-party Hillsborough Agreement (2010). Its findings also assisted the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (NIHRC) in its successful campaign for enhanced investigatory powers.
The findings from this research on noticing and helping neglected children are contributing to shaping effective responses by practitioners. In high income countries neglect is the most frequent category of child maltreatment. In the UK as many as one in ten children may experience neglect and yet systems here, and other jurisdictions with similar models, struggle to provide an effective response. The research at Stirling is improving practitioner knowledge and confidence with the development of comprehensive training materials and follow-on knowledge exchange work with multi-disciplinary groups of practitioners in England. It has contributed to policy development in England and Scotland.
Loughborough University's Improving Outcomes of Services for Children in Need research is a programme of interlinked studies that has had a substantial impact on the development of national and international policy and professional practice for the most vulnerable children. It has influenced the development of government policy on safeguarding children from abuse and neglect, placement in out-of-home care, and adoption throughout the United Kingdom and in Australia, Canada and countries in Western and Eastern Europe. The researchers have translated a number of findings into tools designed to shape professional practice: these include a computer application that introduces transparency into the comparison of costs and outcomes of services.
For the most part, looked-after children have poorer physical and mental health than other children, and do less well educationally. Their employment prospects are poorer and they are over-represented amongst young offenders. But this is changing for the better in Northern Ireland, where research at Queen's has helped to improve the stability and quality of placements provided to looked-after children, and the support given to them when they leave care. The 2010 Demos report on children in state care in the UK used illustrations of best practice from Northern Ireland.
In response to a new NHS policy initiative to create child-friendly hospitals, an ESRC funded research project (Space to Care, 2004-7) explored children's own perceptions and experiences of hospital space by seeking out the views of children aged 4-16 who were hospital patients. Through revealing the importance of age as a key differentiating factor in children and young people's views about hospital space, the result of adopting this child-centred approach was to demonstrate that the government's concept of a `child-friendly hospital' was failing to address the different needs of all children up to the age of 16. The findings from the study were therefore used to develop a set of key design principles and evaluation toolkits for healthcare professionals, architects and healthcare planners to help make hospitals more child-centred. These have: (1) informed the health-care design practices of architects, nationally and internationally; and (2) assisted health-care professionals in the UK and Australia to improve their existing facilities.
Young Lives is identifying major influences on children's development, from infancy to adulthood, by carrying out a pioneering longitudinal study across four developing countries over 15 years. Young Lives gathers and analyses data on how childhood is changing in diverse communities, especially through the impact of economic, cultural and policy shifts, by studying two age cohorts in each country. UNICEF, the World Bank, Plan International, and Save the Children International, among others, are using Young Lives research to design childhood poverty-reduction policies in the Post-2015 Development Agenda. The research also underpins the re-visioning of global child protection work by UNICEF, Save the Children Canada, and World Vision UK.
Over 3 million UK children live in poverty. Ridge's research has shown that understanding the impact and experience of poverty from the child's perspective is essential for developing effective policies and services to improve children's lives. Through strong, close and enduring relations with policy makers and advocacy groups, her research and knowledge exchange have directly influenced national and local government policies for low-income children. Policy-makers now listen to children's perspectives as they develop policy, incorporating statutory consultation with children into key initiatives such as the Child Poverty Strategy. This has significantly improved the quality of life of children and families in poverty.
Research at Strathclyde has focused on the abuse of children in residential care, both historical and contemporary abuse, and drawn out the implications for improving current policy and practice. These research conclusions have been central in informing local, national and international policy and practice developments, impacting on interventions for adults who have experienced abuse in care, training and education of residential child care professionals, and current residential child care services. This impact has been delivered through the research directly informing the evidence base for the Shaw Review (2007) in Scotland into lessons to be learnt from historical abuse. This Review drew upon the published research alongside commissioned accounts by the Strathclyde researchers to identify actions by the Scottish Government in this area which have been implemented by government since 2008.
This case study reports the impact on awareness and understanding of children's rights by policy makers, practitioners and children. This was achieved through the development of a legally sound and research-based but user-friendly model for understanding and implementing Article 12 of the UNCRC. This model has been used by the Northern Ireland and Irish Children's Commissioner, Non-governmental organisations, other Higher Education Institutions, government departments and teachers to inform policy makers, practitioners and children and young people about the obligation to give children's views due weight in decision-making. The research model and the practical impact it has had has extended understanding beyond the traditionally used concept of the "voice of the child" or "pupil voice" by emphasizing the legal obligation to ensure that children's views have an influence on decision-making, with direct effects on policy and practice and also enabling government to fulfil its additional obligation under Article 42 of the UNCRC to ensure that the rights in the UNCRC are widely known among adults and children alike.