Children’s Social Care Research and Development Centre
Written by Jonathan Scourfield, Deputy Director of the Centre As we are a research and development centre for children’s social care, safeguarding has of course always been a key priority for CASCADE. With this being National Safeguarding Week, I’d like to highlight some of our work on this theme. We aim to do research with… Read More
There is limited research on child criminal exploitation with far less known about how this manifests in Wales. This Health Care Research Wales funded study addressed this research gap. The study examined how children are targeted, groomed, and criminally exploited in Wales. It also assessed what different services need to effectively identify, engage, and safeguard these children by exploring approaches and interventions most effective in the identification and… Read More
Harrow Council, England, become the first signatories of a brand new charter aimed at removing stigma and automatic pre-birth assessments of Care Experienced Parents from the Social Care System. The development of new charter was led by CASCADE, Cardiff University and is launched in partnership with Care Leaver Local Offer Background to the charter The charter builds… Read More
CASCADE are delighted to announce that we have been awarded three exciting research fellowships. Leaving a pupil referral unit: Exploring the transitions and post-16 destinations of care experienced young people across Wales Phil Smith How can we improve the experiences and outcomes of autistic children in care? A mixed methods study of needs, services, and… Read More
It is widely accepted that children looked after have poorer educational and health outcomes than the general population. However, low numbers and the tendency to treat children looked after as a homogenous group is problematic not least because it overlooks differences based on individual needs and circumstances. To understand the reasons for these inequalities, a… Read More
Our annual report provides a great introduction to our work. In 2020 CASCADE was delighted to receive infrastructure funding to develop our partnership with the Centres for Trials Research and Human Developmental Science at Cardiff University and Swansea University’s Secure Anonymised Information Linkage Centre. The funding allowed us to develop new ideas for research projects,… Read More
There is very little research on the experiences and outcomes of autistic children in foster or kinship care. This is an area I have been passionate about for a while and I am excited to be able to start a new project, made possible by a Health and Care Research Wales three-year fellowship. From the… Read More
As a qualified youth and community worker, I’ve always had an interest in working with young people who struggle with formal education, and who are marginalised or under-represented in research. It is widely known that, on average, many children in care find education to be difficult. What is less well understood is what happens to… Read More
I really like Schwartz Rounds. I know when you undertake a scientific evaluation of something, you are supposed be carefully neutral, to avoid the suggestion of bias or that you might have pre-empted the outcome. But I am only human, and I have to be honest. I liked the idea of Schwartz Rounds before we… Read More
What question does this study focus on? Our study examined the impact of a checklist intervention on social workers’ forecasting abilities (how well they could predict the likelihood of different events and outcomes) and confirmation bias (the extent to which respondents sought information to confirm, rather challenge, their current view). You can see a copy of the… Read More
