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Nell Warner

Dr Nell Warner

(she/her)

Research Associate, CASCADE

School of Social Sciences

Email
WarnerAH@cardiff.ac.uk
Telephone
+44 29208 76910
Campuses
sbarc|spark, Room 03.14, Maindy Road, Cathays, Cardiff, CF24 4HQ

Overview

I am a Research Associate and Data Linkage Lead for CASCADE, the Children’s Social Care Research and Development Centre at Cardiff University.  I am currently carrying out a three-year Health and Care Research Wales Fellowship looking at factors associated with children returning home from care.

I have previously contributed to a number of projects in CASCADE looking at different issues relating to children’s social care and was the Principal Investigator of a project looking at the relationship between household risk factors and the later entry of children into local authority care. My PhD focused on changes in the emotional well-being of parents with young children receiving home visiting support from Home-Start.

My research interests include children’s social care and the looked after system, parenting and family support interventions, the emotional well-being of parents, outcomes for children in adverse family circumstances, quantitative methods and working with administrative data.

Publication

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

Articles

Monographs

Thesis

Research

Current Research

Returning Home from Care
I am currently carrying out a three-year Health and Care Research Wales Social Care Fellowship on Returning Home from Care.  It is exploring the factors that are associated with children being successfully reunited with their families after a period in care.  This includes practice to support reunification, as well as factors associated with the child, their parents and their local area.  It is also looking at the extent to which changes in reunification account for the increases in numbers of children in care. More information is available on the CASCADE website. The study will run until November 2026.

Parental Risk Factors and Children Entering Care
I am the Principal Investigator for this Health and Care Research Wales funded project looking at the relationship between household risk factors and the later entry of children into local authority care.  The study used routinely collected data from social services in Wales and linked it to data from health and education to look at the households children were living in before they entered care. It looked at the risk factors in the adults living in those households as well as child characteristics. More information is available on the CASCADE website. The study is due to be completed by January 2024

Previous Research

Between May 2018 and September 2020 I worked on a range of projects being carried out at CASCADE Cardiff University for What Works for Children’s Social Care. This included contributing to evidence reviews and a number of empirical research projects.  Research projects included:

  • Secure Accommodation, Completed September 2020 - I was part of the research team investigating the backgrounds and outcomes of young people referred to secure accommodation in England. The study used linked administrative data sets to compare the backgrounds and outcomes of young people placed in secure accommodation, with those who were referred but not placed. My role focused on the analysis of Children in Need data, to identify the young people’s prior involvement with children’s services.
  • Higher Education of Care Experienced Young People, Completed May 2020 - This project was a mixed methods study seeking to understand the factors that are associated with care-experienced young people applying for Higher Education and how they can be supported to do so.  I led on the quantitative arm of the project, which used the Next Steps dataset to explore how the aspirations of care-experienced young people to apply for Higher Education differ from those who are not care experienced and how this changes over time.
  • Outcomes Focused Supervision, Pilot Study, Completed January 2020 - This study was carried out in Birmingham Children’s Trust, and explored the feasibility of implementing and evaluating the effectiveness of Outcomes Focused Supervision in children’s services.  Data was being collected at three time points, from social workers, and social work supervisors, with limited data collected from the families they work with. I led on the quantitative analysis for the study.

Doctoral Research: Home Visiting Support for Parents in adverse situations, the nature of support and parental emotional well-being, completed 2018
My PhD examined the relationship between family circumstances, the nature of support and improvements in parental emotional well-being among families receiving home visiting support.  It was co-sponsored by Home-Start UK and the ESRC.  The Home-Start model of family support was used as a case study and the research carried out through the quantitative analysis of Home-Start’s administrative data.  Models were developed to explore changes in emotional well-being over the course of support among families in different circumstances and receiving different types of support.

 

Biography

After an undergraduate degree in Biochemistry, I had an early career teaching secondary school science in both Cardiff and Uganda.  I then spent fourteen years working for the children’s umbrella organisation Children in Wales, in a policy and information-based role before returning to academia.   My PhD focused on home visiting support provided to families with young children by Home-Start UK.  It used Home-Start’s administrative data to look at how a family’s situation and the way support is provided, are related to changes in emotional well-being among parents receiving support.   I have been working as a Research Associate at CASCADE since May 2018, initially contributing to a wide range of projects being carried out for What Works for Children’s Social Care.  I was the Principal Investigator of a two-year, Health and Care Research Wales funded project looking at the relationship between household risk factors and the later entry of children into local authority care.  I am now carrying out a three-year Health and Care Research Wales Social Care Fellowship looking at the factors associated with children returning home from care.

Supervisions

Current supervision

Aimee Cummings

Aimee Cummings

Research student

Ella Watson

Ella Watson

Research student