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Sally Holland

Professor Sally Holland

(she/her)

Professor

School of Social Sciences

Email
HollandS1@cardiff.ac.uk
Telephone
+44 29225 14602
Campuses
sbarc|spark, Room 03.14, Maindy Road, Cathays, Cardiff, CF24 4HQ
cymraeg
Welsh speaking

Overview

I am a Professor of Social Work. My research interests include child and family social work, children’s rights and child and youth involvement in both research and policy-making. My research centre is CASCADE Children’s Social Care Research and Development Centre where I lead on public involvement and public affairs.

From 2015 to 2022 I was Children’s Commissioner for Wales.

I am the Director of Equalities, Diversity and Inclusion for the School of Social Sciences.

I am currently leading the evaluation of the Welsh Government's Basic Income Pilot for Care Leavers, alongside my colleague David Westlake.

I teach on the MA Social Work programme and supervise Master’s dissertations and PhDs.

Publication

2024

2023

2022

2019

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2006

2005

2004

2000

Articles

Book sections

Books

Conferences

Monographs

Websites

Research

My research interests centre around children and families, particularly in the field of children's social care.

I am currently leading the evaluation of the Welsh Government's Basic Income Pilot for Care Leavers, alongside my colleague David Westlake.

My research projects have explored several aspects of children’s and families’ lives, including:

  • A review of effective interventions to improve outcomes for looked after children for the Big Lottery. The charity then invested £5m in a trial of the intervention recommended by the study;
  • a participative project with looked after children using creative methods;
  • an observational study of social workers’ engagement with children;
  • a community study of children’s safeguarding on a housing estate;
  • life history interviews with care experienced young adults;
  • an adoption cohort study;
  • a study of children’s experiences of family group conferences.

Selected research grants:

2022-26 Evaluation of the Welsh Government's Basic Income Pilot for Care Leavers. Commissioned by Welsh Government. £800,000.

2013-2015 Holland, Ruch, Winter, Cree, Hadfield, ‘Communicating with Vulnerable Children: Understanding the Everyday Practices of Child and Family Social Workers’, ESRC, £415,000. ES/K006134/1

2013 (March-September) Holland. ‘Scoping and analysis of neglect tools, procedures and services responses in wales’, NSPCC/A4C/Welsh overnment, £20,000.

2013-16 Co-applicant (PI Robling, co-applicants Hood, Kemp, Butler, Sanders (Medicine), Holland, Segrott (SOCSI)) ‘Evaluating the long-term effectiveness, and the cost and consequences of the Family Nurse Partnership parenting support programme in reducing maltreatment in young children’ NIHR, £680,015.

September 2010-January 2011 Byrne and Holland, ‘Children at Risk: evaluating Early Years interventions with homeless families through photography’, Cymorth, £6,500.

Oct 2010-Oct 2011 Bateman, MacIntosh, Rushworth, Holland and Williams, ‘Dental Health and Looked After Children’, Northumbria Health Board, £15,000.

April 2010-April 2011 Scourfield, Bullock, Featherstone, Holland, Tolman, A feasibility study for a randomised controlled trial of a training intervention to improve the engagement of fathers in the child protection system, Wales Office of Research and Development in Health and Social Care (WORD), £124,000.

Oct 2009-Oct 2010 Forrester, Copello and Holland ‘An Evaluation of the “Option 2” Intensive Family Preservation Service’ AERC £60,000.

Teaching

I teach on the MA Social Work programme

I supervise undergraduate and Master's dissertation and Doctoral students