Dr Martin Elliott, Research Associate in CASCADE Research Centre has won a prestigious national award for best article in the British Journal of Social Work in 2020.

The British Association of Social Work (BASW) Kay McDougall Prize is awarded for breadth of scholarship, sophistication of theory, rigour of research, relevance to practice and international appeal.

Martin’s paper looks at inequalities in children’s likelihoods of becoming ‘looked after’ and what happens to those inequalities during a period of rapidly increasing numbers of children entering care.  In the example used in the paper, the period immediately after the death of Peter Connelly (Baby P).  On average, children in the most deprived neighbourhoods in Wales are almost 12 times more likely to become looked after than their peers in the least deprived neighbourhoods.  In the wake of Peter Connelly’s death, the rapid increase in numbers of children entering care were disproportionately drawn from the most deprived neighbourhoods, with small or no increase from the least deprived neighbourhoods.

“As a social work student in the mid-nineties, the British Journal of Social Work was one of the first places I looked when doing my course assignments.  To have my first sole authored paper published in BJSW and for that paper to be awarded the BASW Kay McDougall prize is something I’m incredibly proud of.”  

Read Martin’s award winning article Child Welfare Inequalities in a Time of Rising Numbers of Children Entering Out-of-Home Care in full.

Contact Martin for more information