New funding to explore children’s social care within families

Nikki’s project, ‘Siblings in contact with children’s social care’, will use the Education and Child Health Outcomes from Linked Data (ECHILD) dataset to identify siblings born to the same mother and examine patterns of children’s social care involvement within families.

Nikki said: “I’m very excited to have been given this opportunity. The ADR UK Fellowships are a fantastic opportunity for researchers and offer a supportive, collegiate structure focused on producing useful research findings.

“I’m really looking forward to working with ADR UK, Become, Imperial College London, and a broad range of policy and practice partners to ensure this research is useful in informing support for children and families.”

The research will explore which child and family characteristics are linked to different patterns of contact with children’s social care, and whether children’s education, mental health and social care outcomes differ when their siblings have also had contact with services.

The research could provide new evidence to help policymakers and practitioners better understand families’ needs and improve support for children and young people.

Care-experienced young people, supported by the charity Become, will contribute their lived experience throughout the research, helping to ensure the study reflects the experiences of children and families.

ECHILD links education, health and social care records for around 21 million children and young people in England, creating new opportunities to understand how experiences across these services are connected.

The ADR UK Research Fellowships support researchers to use linked administrative data to address important policy questions.