Browse our collection of recent CASCADE updates and news items, providing a variety of materials for researchers, practitioners, and the public.

  • A stack of books which have been blurred.
    Book Launch – Experimental Methods and Children’s Social Care

    We’re delighted to announce the launch of Experimental Methods and Children’s Social Care: The Contribution of Randomised Controlled Trials, co-edited by David Westlake from CASCADE, alongside Michael Sanders (School for Government, King’s College London) and Vanessa Hirneis (The Policy Institute, King’s College London). Published in October 2025, this timely and insightful volume brings together leading… Read More
  • yellow award ribbon on a blue background
    CASCADE Parents Research Advisory Group Wins Public Involvement Award

    We’re thrilled to share that the CASCADE Parents Research Advisory Group has won the Public Involvement Award at the 2025 Health and Care Research Wales Awards. The awards were announced at the tenth annual Health and Care Research Wales conference, held on 16 October at Sophia Gardens in Cardiff. The event brought together researchers, practitioners,… Read More
  • View if an aeroplane wing from the cabin window
    Sharing and learning internationally

    It has been an exciting summer of international collaborations for CASCADE, with trips to China, Italy, Germany and Denmark. Most recently, Professor Donald Forrester and Dr Lorna Stabler travelled to Copenhagen to deliver a summer school for the Centre for Better Childhoods at University College Copenhagen. Centre for Better Childhoods The Centre for Better Childhoods… Read More
  • Collection of pebbles etched with a question mark
    What is good social work? How can we put people with lived experience at the heart of answering that question

    When families interact with children’s social services, what separates a good experience from a poor one? And how does the way social workers communicate with families affect their experience? These are questions that matters deeply to thousands of children and families across Wales and beyond – and now, for the first time, those who’ve lived… Read More
  • From Wales to Australia: A Shared Vision for Care Leavers

    When we were invited to Melbourne to share the Best Practice Charter to Support Parents in Leaving Care, we never imagined we’d actually be able to go, let alone receive such a warm welcome once we arrived. Thanks to successful funding from Cardiff University’s H-IAA Follow-on Fund*, our trip became a reality. We were invited and… Read More
  • Colourful map of Europe with a small toy car placed on it
    CASCADE joins major new European project on child maltreatment services

    CASCADE is proud to be part of a major new Horizon Europe project Serena, which brings together researchers from 12 countries to improve access to care for children affected by abuse and neglect. Led by Professor Catherine Quantin and coordinated by INSERM (France), the €6.3 million project will assess how services across Europe respond to… Read More
  • CASCADE Researcher Appointed Specialty Lead for Social Care at Health and Care Research Wales

    CASCADE is proud to announce that Lorna Stabler, an experienced social care researcher at Cardiff University, has been appointed as the Specialty Lead for Social Care and Residential Care in Health and Care Research Wales. This prestigious role involves providing strategic support and championing research delivery within Wales. Health and Care Research Wales is recruiting… Read More
  • Parents’ Group Publishes Groundbreaking Article in British Journal of Social Work

    We’re excited to share that an article co-written by members of CASCADE’s parents’ group has been published in the British Journal of Social Work. Titled “Critical Reflections on Public Involvement in Research: Involving Involuntary Recipients of Social Services to Improve Research Quality”, the article explores what meaningful involvement looks like when working with parents who have… Read More
  • Health and Care Research funding awards

    Cardiff University researchers have been successful in the latest round of Health and Care Research Wales funding awards. The recipients of Health and Care Research Wales’ personal and project funding awards were announced on 1 April 2025. Personal award funding has been conferred to researchers from across Wales, including five Advancing Researcher awards, two Personal… Read More
  • Hot Chicks review – a powerful tale of exploitation and lost innocence 

    This is a hard hitting play about child criminal exploitation, in which writer Rebecca Jade Hammond has cleverly demonstrated the chilling charms of the groomer and the trap that the children fall into.  The audience is helpless and harrowed as the story unfolds and Ruby and Kyla become pawns under Sadie’s compelling and often brutal rule.