Who we are
This project is co-funded by ADR England and Foundations – What Works Centre for Children and Families.
It is led by Swansea University, Lancaster University, Imperial College London, University College London, and the University of Sussex. The community is also supported by Barnardo's, Data to Insight, Children’s Commissioner’s Office, and Nuffield Family Justice Observatory.
Professor Lucy Griffiths: Principal Investigator
Lucy is a Professor of Paediatric Epidemiology at Swansea University Medical School. Her research focuses on building a better picture of children’s lives to improve outcomes. She uses administrative and cohort study data to examine how social and environmental factors influence the lives of children and young people. A key focus of her research is on at risk populations - particularly children living in poverty, facing adverse environmental conditions, or involved in the family justice system and children’s social care services. Lucy co-leads the Environment and Health Research Centre at Swansea University. She also collaborates with several key organisations, including the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory, the Children's Social Care Research and Development Centre, Health Data Research UK Wales, and ADR UK, to advance knowledge and to improve outcomes for children and families.
Professor Karen Broadhurst: Co-investigator (co-lead)
Karen is a Professor in the Department of Sociology at Lancaster University and former Co-Director of the Lancaster Data Science Institute. Karen is currently serving as ADR UK Ambassador and is elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. Karen's interests are in child and family justice, and she is recognised nationally and internationally for high-quality, high-impact research that has catalysed measurable change in policy and practice. Karen’s team produced the first estimate of women's repeat appearances in the family courts, drawing attention to the impact of "repeat removals" of children on birth mothers, their partners and wider family networks. Karen collaborates with colleagues in the US, Australia and in Europe, to improve justice for families, with a particular interest in the use of administrative data for the public good. Karen has held numerous expert advisory roles, including for the Commission on Justice in Wales, the President of the Family Division’s Public Law Working Group, and the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care.
Dr Dougal Hargreaves: Co-investigator
Dougal is an Honorary Consultant Paediatrician at St Mary's Hospital in London and Houston Reader in Paediatrics & Population Health in the School of Public Health at Imperial College London. He has long-standing interest in joining up data, services and policies for children and young people across health, education, social care and other sectors. He was previously Clinical Advisor to the Chief Medical Officer (2009-11) and Deputy Chief Scientific Adviser at the Department for Education (2020-21).
Professor Katie Harron: Co-investigator
Katie is Professor of Statistics and Health Data Science at the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health. Katie leads the Education and Child Health Insights from Linked Data (ECHILD) project, which links administrative data from health, education and children’s social care services for the whole population of children in England. Her applied research focuses on maximising the use of existing data sources to improve services for vulnerable mothers and families, and using linked data to improve our understanding of the health of individuals from birth to young adulthood. Katie is also interested in the development of statistical methods and synthetic data for data linkage and the evaluation of linkage quality.
Professor Lisa Holmes: Co-investigator
Lisa joined the School of Education and Social Work at the University of Sussex in January 2022 as Professor of Applied Social Science. Prior to this, she was an Associate Professor and Deputy Director of Research in the Department of Education, University of Oxford. Lisa started her academic career in 2000 as a research assistant, based in the Centre for Child and Family Research at Loughborough University. Between 2013 and 2017 she was Director of the research centre, and led a large portfolio of research and evaluation projects focused on children's social care. Over the past twenty four years Lisa has carried out a range of research and evaluation projects, with a particular focus on the relationship between needs, costs and outcomes of services and support provided to children and families. In 2005, Lisa was seconded into the English Government Department for Children, Schools and Families to share research findings and produce a practice guide and resource pack to assist the children’s services department with the strategic development and planning of services, to meet the needs of at-risk children. Lisa has published a range of books, journal articles and project evaluation reports. In late 2017, along with colleagues at UCL and the University of Oxford, Lisa established the Children's Social Care Data User Group. The group provides a forum to share expertise and learning between all users and potential users (academic, practice, and policy) of children's social care data.
Dr Grace Bailey: Researcher
Grace is a researcher at Swansea University Medical School. She is interested in the experiences and outcomes of children and young people involved with children’s statutory social care services. Her research uses linked administrative data across areas of social, health and education to enhance our understanding of children’s outcomes across the life course. She is currently part of the Community Catalyst for Children at Risk of Poor Outcomes project at Swansea University, which aims to provide national leadership for policy, practice, research and administrative data in the UK. She hopes that this work can encourage a community of researchers and data users to address research priorities.
Kat Tranter-Hatton: Researcher
Kat is a Senior Research Associate based at Lancaster University and Stakeholder Engagement Officer for the ADR UK Research Community Catalyst for Children at Risk of Poor Outcomes project. Kat has been leading on the stakeholder consultation for the project, alongside Professor Karen Broadhurst. Prior to the project, Kat has recently engaged in practice within the field children’s mental health following a decade in registered social work practice across statutory and voluntary children’s services, in addition to completing an MA in Social Research at Lancaster University.
Dr Eliazar Luna: Researcher
Eliazar is a Research Fellow at the UCL GOS Institute of Child Health, working within the Child Health Informatics Group. He uses the ECHILD database to analyse the health and social outcomes of children looked after and children in need. Before joining the Institute, Eliazar was a Research Fellow at UCL's Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology, contributing to projects at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, including the Public Mental Health Implementation Centre and the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health. He holds a PhD in Epidemiology and Public Health, focusing on the social determinants of depression and the association between depression and mortality in the Chilean population.
Marie Greaves: Project Manager
Marie is a project manager and communication specialist based at Swansea University. She has 20+ years demonstrated experience of delivering research projects on time, in budget and to scope. She is also experienced in marketing, including event management & digital communications. She is a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing and Project Management Association, and has a BA Hons in Marketing from the University of the West of England. Marie has also volunteered as a young person’s mentor for the charity Barnardo’s.
