Impact case study database

Since 2014, the Centre for Child Protection has worked closely with numerous key child protection stakeholders, including Save the Children, the Home Office, NSPCC (Childline), Department of Education, Local Authorities, Police Services, Counter-Terrorism Unit, and the National Health Service. Through these partnerships, the Centre has improved child protection knowledge, pedagogy, and practice via development and dissemination of their research-based simulations. The Centre has achieved an international reputation as a hub of child protection excellence. For example, the Department for Child Protection of South Australia has incorporated Rosie2 into a full-day, contextualised professional development training event for their staff.

Anna Clark, the Principal Social Worker of South Australia said: ‘The Rosie2 simulation allows practitioners to experience a realistic home visit conducted virtually, including preparation for the home visit, assessment of the home environment and decision making process following the home visit. This is intended to replicate what happens in the field [which has not] previously be[en] recreated. [The simulation] provides an opportunity for practitioners to consider risk and harm factors for a child or young person, as well as analyse the decision making processes’ [a]. In the UK in 2018, Lottie was featured on NSPCC’s Childline website as part of a five-week campaign on healthy relationships. 278,000 people interacted with the Lottie simulation, contributing to a 10% decrease in calls to Childline about relationships [b].

Below we demonstrate the significance and reach of the Centre’s work across the sector, with examples of some of its most significant impact.

Advancing Child Protection Practitioners’ Knowledge and Practice

The Centre’s simulations have contributed to the professional development, knowledge, and practice of educational and social-care practitioners across the UK [c]. For example, since August 2013, the Centre has sold 8,762 licences for Rosie2 and Rosie myCourtroom, and reached a further 6,000 stakeholders through the freely downloadable Rosie1 [Table 1, d]. Training delegates highlighted the simulations as: ‘really helpful in prompting discussion around practice challenges and what it might be like from a child/family viewpoint’ [c]. A Senior Learning and Development Commissioning Officer for Surrey Children’s Services Academy (SCSA), which has employed the simulations since 2019, said that the simulation helps them to ‘reach large numbers of practitioners across a wide geographical area’, has ‘given practitioners an opportunity to consider how they can best achieve change for children and families’, and ‘revisit academic learning, social work methods and theories underpinning their work’ [e].

Informing Workplace Planning, Practice and Opportunity

In the UK, the simulations also have informed workforce planning and capacity across the sector. Official statistics from the Department for Education in England alone show that there is a 16% turnover rate among child and family social workers working in local authorities in England, with 6,000 vacancies in 2019. A third of this workforce had less than two years’ experience, and nearly 60% had less than five years’ experience ( Official statistics: Children and Family Social Work Workforce in England, Department for Education, 27 February 2020). Thus, there is an urgent need for high-quality training of new child and family social workers. The Centre’s simulations help ensure that the professionals working in local authorities have the necessary skills to protect children who have experienced neglect or abuse. For example, Rosie2 has been used for the recruitment and comprehensive training of practitioners with the Surrey Children’s Services Academy (SCSA) ( 2019-present), Devon Council ( 2015-present), Kirklees Council ( 2014-present), and Barnet Council ( 2016-present) [d]. Most recently, the SCSA acknowledged the particular value of the simulations during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown, when ‘the lack of statutory placements can mean qualified social workers haven't always had as broad range of experience as they require, simulations support this and give them an opportunity to develop skills in a safe environment’ [e].

Internationally, since 2015, Denmark Metropol University, the University of South Australia, and the Department for Children’s Protection (DCP; Australia) all use Rosie2 to train social-work students and social workers [f, a]. A Program Director at the University of South Australia explained: ‘As a result of the discipline’s association with the Centre, there has been an emergence of a community of practice with an interest in the development and evaluation of simulations’, and ‘The use of Rosie2 has resulted […] in improved student satisfaction rate […] and has opened up opportunities to work in partnership with Aboriginal leaders to explore the use of simulations in areas of child protection and mental health’ [f]. Similarly, a collaboration between Professor Reeves, the University of South Australia, and the South Australia Department for Children’s Protection resulted in the development of a CPD course, ‘Rosie Safe’, to enhance qualified social workers’ capabilities for undertaking child safety assessments. About this course, South Australia’s Principal Social Worker asserts that they have received ‘consistently positive feedback about the benefits of being able to use a realistic simulation’, with practitioners highlighting consistently that ‘this training should be compulsory for all staff who are conducting home visits, investigations and completing safety assessments and safety plans’ [a].

Influencing Child Protection Pedagogy and Heightening Young People’s Awareness

Through dissemination of the simulations in schools and with educational professionals, the Centre for Child Protection has influenced child protection pedagogy. In secondary education, for example, CCP has trained over 2,465 professionals on the ‘Grooming suite’ simulations (Zak, Lottie, and BCD) since August 2013. 6,370 licences (including renewals) have been sold, which enable trainers to use the simulation with an unlimited number of children, parents, or other professionals during a single year [Table 2, d]. Assuming each trainer reaches between 20 and 100 students, we conservatively estimate that between 127,000 and 637,000 children have been taught [Table 2, d]. A 2017 survey of 146 educators who were trained using Zak and Lottie revealed that between 60% and 95% of them (depending upon school type) had increased their own knowledge of grooming; between 52% and 95% had increased their own knowledge of radicalisation; and, between 27% and 59% had recommended changes to their organisation’s safeguarding policy since being trained [Table 3, g]. Of the 98 educators who had also used the simulation with young people, ‘94% believed that their students’ knowledge [of internet safety] and awareness [of grooming] had increased’ [g]. One trainee stated: ‘It has made students think about the choices they make’, and ‘made them think more closely about the possible impact of their actions’ [g].

Moreover, since 2019, the BCD simulation has been implemented in priority-risk areas by the Home Office in ‘train-the-trainer’ sessions with Prevent Education Officers (PEOs) across the UK, with 301 professionals directly trained. An assistant head teacher described BCD as ‘One of the most useful and professional resources I have come across’ [h]. These PEOs intended to use training licences with other staff, parents, and young people of varying ages [h].

The Lottie simulation was viewed by 278,000 people during a five-week 2018 NSPCC Childline campaign. While there was in increase in calls to Childline during the campaign, there was a 10% decrease in calls about healthy relationships, suggesting that Lottie may have answered children’s questions without the need for individual conversations with a counsellor [b].

Since its first academic development activities in March 2017, Parkinson and his colleagues’ collaborative action research has directly underpinned the agenda, strategy, design, and delivery of the Cara SP, for which Parkinson chairs the Academic Development Steering Group. Parkinson and colleagues’ research and engagement in this field have led to the development of multiple capacity-building, academic development, and community development practices. Below are identified some of the key benefits that have arisen as a result, and which have supported hundreds of Syrian academics to continue their academic work whilst improving their well-being and professional identity [a].

Advancing Cara SP’s Strategy, Methods, and Reach

Between 2017 and 2020, the number of international academics contributing to the Cara SP’s academic development activities has grown from eight to over 200, and the Cara SP cohort from 29 to over 400, with 160 regularly active participants [a, j]. Cara’s Executive Director, Stephen Wordsworth, praised the ‘transformative practices that have stemmed from Tom’s research’, asserting that ‘the action research that Tom has led has been instrumental in helping Cara to develop a strategy for the Syria Programme, and indeed a model for future comparable programmes [and] has played a critical part in advancing our understanding of Syrian academic needs and challenges, and in the development of the Programme’s methods and practice’ [a]. Similarly, in reference to the needs analysis undertaken by Parkinson and colleagues reported in [R3] and [R4], the Cara SP’s independent evaluator applauded the ‘innovative processes [used] to identify […] academic skills needs and participant priorities’ [i], and confirmed that ‘[the Cara SP] has achieved significant results in terms of its intended outputs and towards outcomes. The programme improved skills and networks among Syrian academics and in particular succeeded in its intention to enable academic engagement by Syrian academics in exile in Turkey’ [j].

Improving Syrian Academics’ Well-Being and Professional Identity

Through a programme of activities targeted towards the priorities identified in Parkinson, McDonald, and Quinlan’s research [R3], the Cara SP has contributed to exiled Syrian academics’ greater sense of well-being, belonging, and identity. As highlighted by Wordsworth: ‘participants attest to the transformative impact of the Syria Programme on their self-efficacy, research and teaching capacities, professional opportunities, community cohesion and overall well-being, enhancing their work as educators and researchers in both Turkish and non-regime-controlled universities in Northern Syria’ [a]. Participants have described the Cara SP as ‘a light in a very dark tunnel’: ‘I feel I am an academic again. I [now] have networks with other colleagues in the UK and even in Syria’; ‘I have felt reborn. This programme helps me to work in a team and improve my academic skills, especially in [...] scientific writing so I can prepare my work for publication’; ‘It encouraged me to work, to write something. To feel about myself as an academic. I had lost that feeling’ [b].

Building Syrian Academics’ International and Cross-Sectoral Networks

Since 2017, Parkinson and his colleagues’ research has raised the profile of Syrian academia and the Cara SP, stimulating the growth of an international network of more than 200 academics, including experts and stakeholders in the fields of displacement and (post-)conflict higher education. Wordsworth confirmed that ‘Tom’s publications and research presentations to universities and professional bodies have contributed to the in-kind support from which the Programme has benefited […] valued at well over £1 million’, adding that ‘Tom continues to apply the findings of his research to drive access to opportunity for marginalised Syrian academics’ [a]. As an example, Wordsworth highlighted that, in 2019, Parkinson ‘secured GCRF funding […] to support a four-day roundtable held in June 2019 in lstanbul [bringing] academics together with academics from Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kenya, Northern lreland, Palestine, Serbia, and South Africa. […]. ln his role as chair for the first two days, Tom contributed his research-led expertise to this unique forum for knowledge-sharing between international academics, joined by regional and international NGOs and UN agencies, an event and opportunity that was highly valued by participants informing attendees' organisational practice, helping to build solidarity and community for a growing international and cross-sectoral alliance in support of Syrian academics’ [a].

Advancing the Syrian Academic Community, Partnerships, and Research Capacity

Independent evaluator Teresa Hanley asserted that the Cara SP has ‘increased visibility of the Syrian participants to academia, policy makers and practitioners’ [j], and that these encounters have catalysed a number of collaborations and initiatives that ‘move beyond the Cara Syria Programme’s direct activities to more sustainable academic engagement and indeed livelihoods’ [j]. Hanley noted in particular that the roundtables in June 2019 had ‘brought participants together with international and local humanitarian responders to the Syria Crisis and academics from other parts of the world’, and that ‘participants interviewed noted their appreciation, particularly of the chance to discuss higher education development and other conflict-affected countries’ experience’ [j]. Following advice and encouragement from delegates at the research-led round tables [c], several Cara SP academics established the Academic Centre for Development and Peace Studies (ACDP), a Syrian-led civil society organisation and academic consortium in Gaziantep, Turkey, in December 2019. ACDP Co-Director Shaher Abdullateef attested to the impact of the roundtables in creating the impetus for ACDP: ‘[At the round tables] we heard different cases [from] Belarus, Bosnia Herzegovina, Kenya, Northern Ireland, Palestine, Serbia and South Africa. It was very useful to develop ideas about how to organise […] and what to do as a first step. […] we finally established [ACDP] as a space to collect [...] and to conduct research relative to Syria context. The idea of empowering Syrian academics [and] rais[ing] their voices is older than two years [but] I wasn’t sure if this is the right way to do it. During the event we Syrian participants were more confident, and the way to connect [with] and involve […] international academia was clearer, especially [with] great encouragement from the international participants.’ [c] Co-Director Fateh Shaban meanwhile asserted that ‘the invaluable support that the Cara Syria Programme has provided to Syrian academics in exile […] has helped us to sustain a working academic network and establish formal organisations such as our Centre, which now serves as a hub through which Syrian academics can access professional and research opportunities and engage effectively with stakeholders in Syria and in diaspora. […] The directors of ACDP began our collaboration on the Cara Syria Programme, and our network of affiliate members comprises many Syrian Programme participants, as well as international experts whom we met at Cara’s Roundtables funded by the University of Kent in 2019’ [d].

Evidence–based capacity building and support models developed by Parkinson and colleagues (e.g. **[R4, R6]**) have been implemented at several residential retreats and regular online events in 2018, 2019, and 2020. These have supported Syrian academics in writing over 100 grant applications; publishing over 30 peer-reviewed outputs as authors or co-authors (2017-20) [a], and attaining internationally recognised teaching fellowships [e].

Supporting Syrian Higher Education

Parkinson’s and colleagues’ research to inform the Cara SP’s academic development strategy [R3, R4] has enhanced Syrian teaching and learning through targeted CPD for academics teaching in Turkey and in northern Syria [a]. Abdullateef, Parkinson, and Sarmini’s research [R1] has enabled and enhanced distance teaching for learners in conflict-affected regions of northern Syria, delivered by exiled academics. For example, Rahmet Relief Foundation (a regional NGO) noted that this research [R1] has directly ‘enabled effective delivery of vital agricultural knowledge to learners in Syria, which has greatly benefitted […] stakeholders [whilst also] providing vital insight for others offering similar interventions’ [f]. Another NGO partner, Shafak, declared that this research had led to ‘refinement of educational delivery models that now ensure sustainable knowledge and support to learners and professionals, online, offline and through physical learning tools’ [g]. Furthermore, learners in northern Syria reported that the educational interventions developed through Parkinson’s and colleagues’ research provided an invaluable source of specialist training, and ‘expressed their appreciation of this learning and its value to their education and livelihoods’ [g]. One participant noted: ‘[It] helped me to review the knowledge on protected agriculture that I took during my studies which were cut off, and also increased my knowledge about methods and areas of use of aquaculture’ [h]. Shafak’s CEO, Omar Atik, stated that these interventions were ‘building hope, community and solidarity’ [g].