Our Work

We work with children’s services - social care, youth justice, education and health - in England and Wales, with central government departments, and with a wide range of voluntary organisations.

Although our current work reflects the changing themes and concerns in children’s services, our approach and our aims stay the same – to make a real and lasting difference to the lives of vulnerable children.

Parents’ experiences of the child protection process

Interviews with 21 parents with children on a child protection plan, to seek their views and recommendations for practice, as part of a wide review about the effectiveness of the local child protection process.

London Borough of Ealing

Review of residential services, including short breaks, for children with severe and complex disabilities

A needs analysis and review of provision of residential, short-break and other services for children with severe and complex disabilities, including a case audit and consultation with stakeholders, to inform the commissioning strategy for future service provision.

London Borough of Islington

Reducing delay in care proceedings

We are part of a small team of project managers for 20 London local authorities working in clusters - together with the courts, CAFCASS, lawyers and providers of assessments - to reduce unnecessary delay for children who are the subject of care proceedings.

Commissioned by Capital Ambition

The Care Inquiry

We co-ordinated the work of the 8 children’s charities reviewing the evidence about what is effective in securing a sense of permanence for children who cannot live with their parents. The final report describes the activities of the Inquiry, including sessions involving over 200 adult participants and a national consultation exercise with 100 children and young people.

Commissioned by Adoption UK, British Association for Adoption and Fostering (BAAF), Family Rights Group, the Fostering Network, Research in Practice, TACT, the Together Trust, and the Who Cares? Trust.

Health and well-being in the youth justice system

We developed materials to help health and social care commissioners draw on national data, collect local evidence of need, and understand the legal and policy levers for providing high-quality care to vulnerable young people. The templates and toolkit are on the youth justice pages of the ChiMat website https://www.chimat.org.uk/yj/hwbna

Commissioned by Department of Health

Commissioning for Early Intervention – a Research in Practice Change Project

A one-year project to provide relevant research evidence and examples of promising practice to eight local authorities as they tested out different approaches to commissioning for early intervention.

Commissioned by Research in Practice

London Councils Early Help Project

Researching information about current provision in 12 London Boroughs and making recommendations for the scope, activities and methodology for a project to establish the sufficiency of Early Help provision across London.

Commissioned by London Safeguarding Children Board

Building capacity to meet the mental health needs of young people in alternative education (Pupil Referral Units)

A three-year project working with 5 local authorities to assess the needs of young people in PRUs and design, implement and evaluate ways in which teaching and non-teaching staff can develop their work in responding to the needs identified.

Commissioned by National Children's Bureau