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Evidence about the need for and provision of health visiting services generated through research undertaken at King's College London (KCL) has underpinned major changes in national policies for health visiting. Our findings about health visitors' practice, availability and distribution of services and effectiveness in terms of parenting/child outcomes, revealed both shortfalls in provision and opportunities for improvement and led to the development of a new caseload weighting tool and funding model for service planning. The accumulated evidence from this research helped convince the UK Government in 2010 to commit to 4,200 more health visitors by 2015 — a workforce expansion of nearly 50% — in a time of austerity and restraint elsewhere in the public sector.
Responding to the crisis in confidence amongst clinicians involved in child protection, Cardiff University developed the world's first research programme to provide the scientific basis for more reliable clinical assessments of child abuse and neglect. The programme, which involves 21 systematic reviews (updated annually) and related primary studies, has directly informed five national clinical guidelines, the National Child Protection training program and the first NICE guidance on child maltreatment. Through the Core-Info website, the evidence base created by the Cardiff team is accessed each year by 100,000 users. Key messages from their research have been published in a series of Core-Info leaflets which have reached more than 250,000 allied professionals nationally. The Cardiff research informs standardised national clinical practice, training and legal decisions, ultimately improving the recognition and protection of children from abuse or neglect.
Sure Start, the flagship New Labour anti-poverty initiative launched in 1999, was an area-based early intervention targeting pockets of social and economic deprivation in England. The multi- disciplinary National Evaluation of Sure Start (NESS), to which Professor Angela Anning was the central educational contributor, was the largest social science evaluation contract ever awarded in the UK. Findings were continually fed back to ministers and civil servants to inform policy and practice. Impacts (discussed below, section 4) include:
(1) systemic changes in integrated services for vulnerable families;
(2) rethinking the resourcing and funding of Children's Centres;
(3) revision of training and qualifications of early childhood staff;
(4) enhancing the role of family support and parenting projects.
Senior managers in agencies in contact with children are frequently criticised, particularly in reports following child deaths, for failing to facilitate collaborative working to safeguard children. Yet, developing and sustaining collaborative systems is not easy. To assist managers, Horwath and Morrison developed a conceptual framework and, in collaboration with policy-makers and managers in Wales, added standards and indicators. These combine to form the building blocks likely to create a safe, multidisciplinary, child protection system. Their research has:
The research addressed the lack of insight from research, policy and practice in relation to adolescents who are neglected within families. Findings have informed policy development at a national level, and were the basis of a guide to good practice, published and circulated widely by the (then) Department for Children Schools and Families ((DCSF), now the Department for Education (DfE)), and a guide for young people to increase their awareness of neglect, published and circulated by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC). At a local level, researchers worked intensively over 18 months with the whole senior management tier from Children's Services in one local authority to enable understanding and refocusing so that adolescent neglect becomes a legitimate part of practice. Managers went on to enable the shift in practice with their teams, and adolescent neglect has been included in revised safeguarding screening tools approved by the Local Safeguarding Children Board (LSCB).
The case study refers to research conducted by the Centre for Applied Criminology (CAC), which has focused on HMP Grendon. This document evidences the following impacts:
* Effects on and changes and benefits to policy and practice within and beyond HMP Grendon.
* Reduction or prevention of harm / negative effects upon staff and prisoners at HMP Grendon.
* Effects on awareness and understanding of needs specific groups of prisoners at HMP Grendon.
* Changes and benefits to opportunities available for HMP Grendon prisoners and applicants.
* Benefits in terms of awareness of penal issues amongst audiences of specific media.
Research on adoption and the inter-agency fee influenced a major governmental review of adoption policy and practice. Selwyn's work led to positions as: academic advisor on the Government's expert working group on adoption; advisor to the Treasury; member of No 10's policy group; and she gave written and oral evidence to the House of Lords and House of Commons Select Committees as part of the adoption reform. Her research on adoption and the subsequent government action led to a significant strengthening of the capacity of the voluntary adoption agencies and changes in social work practice resulting in adoption numbers rising from 3,090 (2011-12) to 3,980 (2012-13). Local authorities were advised to remove the structural disincentive caused by the fee no later than September 2013. Findings also provided key evidence for the Charity Commission in its case against the Catholic Church's appeal to be exempt from equality legislation.
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.
Research undertaken since 1999 by Professor Paul Latreille at Swansea University has examined workplace conflict and its resolution. Much of this research has been externally funded by the ESRC, government and other bodies, and published as reports and papers in internationally recognised academic journals. The research has delivered a range of impacts, including shaping policymaker and practitioner debate and providing confirmation of, and challenges to, policy and practice. Impact is evidenced, inter alia, by references to the research in government consultation documents and responses to such documents, Parliamentary debate and practitioner materials.
Domestic violence is a serious and pernicious problem, affecting one in four women, and a significant number of men. Despite this, in general, legal responses to domestic violence have not been as effective as they could be. Professor Mandy Burton has carried out wide-ranging research for UK government departments and public bodies, including the Home Office, Ministry of Justice (MOJ), Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and the Legal Services Commission (LSC) specifically designed to inform legal and policy change on domestic violence. Her work informed the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act in 2004, and was important in helping to develop more than 100 Specialist Domestic Violence Courts across the country.