Ground-breaking care system study awarded £0.5m

Researchers led by the University of Stirling have won a £500,000 award from the Nuffield Foundation and a philanthropic donor, to carry out the next stage of ground-breaking work intended to improve the lives of children who become "looked-after" by the care systems.

In the largest UK study of its kind, between 2014 and 2018, the team followed the progress of every single child aged five and under who became looked-after in Scotland in the years 2012/2013, a total of 1,836 children.

The highly acclaimed study, published last year (2019) analysed the children's pre-care experiences, pathways and early outcomes. It used administrative data, surveys of caregivers and social workers, and interviews with children and caregivers.

Key findings of Phase 1 of the study - titled Permanently Progressing? Building Secure Futures For Children In Scotland - were that a third of the children were still not in permanent placements after four years, and that adoption generally took more than two years.

Now the team, led by University of Stirling social work expert Dr Helen Whincup has been awarded the prestigious half-million pounds of funding to revisit the 1,836 children.