Scoping longitudinal qualitative studies with seldom-heard families

Funder: ESRC, May 2023 – Jun 2024 

CSWIR Members: Janet Boddy (PI), Rachel Thompson (Co-I), May Nasrawy. 

This feasibility study was a partnership between the University of Sussex, Family Rights Group, the Network of International Women in Brighton and Hove, and Research in Practice. Our aim was to establish feasible methodological frameworks for qualitative longitudinal studies that could engage young families from ‘seldom heard’ communities, while generating synergy in the development of a new birth cohort study. 

Read this project's knowledge synthesis report here: Scoping Longitudinal Qualitative Studies with Seldom-Heard Families Report. 

Cross-national grassroots analysis of the impact of political conflict on the organisation and delivery of social services

Funder: British Academy, Aug 2023 - Apr 2024

CSWIR Members: Reima Ana Maglajlic

This bid included hosting hosted visiting fellow, Assoc. Prof. Valerie Ouedraogo from the MacEwan University in Canada. 

Dr. Ouedraogo’s study focused on the organisation and delivery of social work interventions with the internally displaced people in Burkina Faso. The study was funded by the British Academy Visiting Fellowship and supervised by Dr. Reima Ana Maglajlic. Initial findings from the study were shared during a Symposium held on 10-11^th of April 2024 at the University of Sussex and online. Presenters included Dr. Ouedraogo, but also Dr. Adem Kiliç from from the Bingöl University in Turkey, Oksana Sydorenko, a social work practitioner from Ukraine, and Dr. Ana Radulescu who was at the time European President of the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW Europe). Findings are to be included in the forthcoming book on Social Work and Political Conflict, co-edited by Dr. Reima Ana Maglajlic and Prof. Vasilios Ioakimidis and published, open access, by the IFSW.

The Innovate Project

Funder: ESRC, 2021- 2023

The Innovate Project began in 2021, a four-year ESRC funded project exploring social care innovation to address the needs of young people experiencing extra-familial risks and harms. CSWIR members representing the research project team include Prof Michelle Lefevre (PI), Prof Gillian Ruch (Co-I), Prof Kristi Langhoff (Co-I), Dr Nathalie Huegler (Research Fellow), Dr Roni Eyal-Lubling (Research Fellow), Dr Jeri Damman (Researcher), Dr Reima Ana Maglajlic (Researcher), and Lisa Holmes (Consultant).
The project’s work concluded in December 2023 and since then, the team have been focused on knowledge exchange and impact activity. In Spring 2024, the team delivered a series of free webinars to share key findings. In May 2024, members of the project team offered a free webinar to promote their new open access book on innovation in social care.

The project website (The Innovate Project) is a key resource for professionals working in the field of innovation in social care. Recent additions to the site includes a range of tools, developed in collaboration with Innovation Unit, a project partner, that helps organisations assess and map the opportunities and obstacles to innovation in their context.

New research project on using the data and voice of children and families to improve their lives  

Funder: Nuffield Foundation, October 2021 - September 2026 

Professor Elaine Sharland [e.sharland@sussex.ac.uk], Dr Perpetua Kirby [p.kirby@sussex.ac.uk], Dr Liam Berriman, Professor Gillian Ruch, and Professor Lisa Holmes are partners in an innovative £2.8 million Nuffield Foundation award for research to transform how information about and from children and families is gathered, interpreted and used in child and family social policy, at local and national levels.

This exciting collaborative initiative is led by Professor Leon Feinstein, at the University of Oxford, with further research partners at the London School of Economics and Political Science, University College London and Manchester Metropolitan University. Academic researchers will be working co-productively with five Local Sites: Greater Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, North Yorkshire and Hampshire local authorities, to build capacity and understanding about how to better use administrative data to improve practice and policy. Researchers will collaborate with children, young people, parents, carers, professionals and policymakers to understand and shape how information can be used ethically and effectively. A Learning Network, run by Research in Practice, will bring together 20 local authorities to test out the findings from the five Local Sites and to develop learning materials to support sustainable learning and change across England.

Sussex colleagues will be leading the work on the ethics of data practices, and on voice. The goal is to make sure that children’s administrative data are gathered, shared and used in ways that are both ethically sound and most effective. This includes ensuring that the voices of children, young people and those who care for them and work with them appear loud, clear and authentically within children's data, and are heard when deciding how children’s information should be used.

Disruption Exploitation Phase 2 Evaluation

Funder: The Children’s Society, June 2022 – November 2024

CSWIR Members: Michelle Lefevre, Lisa Holmes

Improving collaborative working to support people experiencing self-neglect: identifying barriers and co-producing solutions

Funder: National Institute for Health Research, March 2022 – December 2024

This project engages with practitioners from Adult Social Care, Health, Fire & Rescue, Environmental Health and Housing, and with people with lived experience, to identify what problems arise in inter-agency and interprofessional practice with self-neglect, and how to address them, in order to improve care and support for people experiencing self-neglect.

Click here to visit our project page.

CSWIR members: David Orr (PI), May Nasrawy, Cindy Morrison.

ADR England Community Catalyst: Children at risk of poor outcomes

Funder: Economic and Social Research Council, January 2024 – January 2026

CSWIR Members: Lisa Holmes (PI)

National evaluation of the A Better Start (ABS)

Funder: National Lottery Community Fund, March 2021 – March 2026

CSWIR Members: Janet Boddy (PI)

The shaping of mental health and the mechanisms leading to (un)successful transitions for care-experienced young people

Funder: MRC-Medical Research Council, January 2022 – March 2026

CSWIR Members: Lisa Holmes (PI)

Reaching Communities: London and South East Region

Funder: National Lottery Community Fund, February 2024 – October 2026

CSWIR Members: Lisa Holmes (PI)