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The educational experiences and outcomes of care experienced children and young people is of longstanding concern. The pervasive inequalities they face suggest that current policies have been unable to respond fully to the complex causes of the problem. This paper reflects on a qualitative study into the educational experiences and aspirations of children and young people who are looked after in Wales. The project worked with care experienced peer researchers and drew on visual, creative and participatory techniques to explore 67 children’s and young people’s experiences of education and, importantly, their opinions on what could be done to improve it. This multimodal approach allowed space for participants to think through their subjective, mundane, but important, experiences that operate alongside, and interact with, more structural challenges. A range of films, magazines, artwork, and music outputs were developed to ensure that the project recommendations could reach wide and diverse audiences. This paper argues the voices of children and young people need to be given a platform to inform policy and practice. For this to happen researchers need to be creative in their approaches to both fieldwork and dissemination; harnessing the power of the arts to make positive changes in the everyday lives of children and young people.

‘Keeping Safe?’ was a three year, empirical, mixed-methods inquiry into child sexual exploitation (CSE). The aim of the study was to conduct an original investigation into the outcomes for children and young people assessed as being ‘at risk’ of sexual exploitation, as well as exploring how best to support young people when responding to CSE and the challenges involved when doing so. The research presented a unique opportunity to track the outcomes for young people over 10 years, by accessing case files relating to young people who were involved with Children’s Services in Wales in the year 2006, whose cases were all reviewed that year as part of an exercise for developing the Sexual Exploitation Risk Assessment Framework (SERAF) in Wales. This was the first instance in the UK in which all children and young people aged between 9 and 18 years who were involved with Children’s Services across a single local authority, were each assessed for their risk in relation to sexual exploitation. The research methodology combined thematic case file analysis, and quantitative coding of each case file to create a rich longitudinal dataset for analysis. A substantial part of the research involved qualitative and ethnographic research with young people, practitioners, and foster carers.

‘Keeping Safe?’ was a three year, empirical, mixed-methods inquiry into child sexual exploitation (CSE). The aim of the study was to conduct an original investigation into the outcomes for children and young people assessed as being ‘at risk’ of sexual exploitation, as well as exploring how best to support young people when responding to CSE and the challenges involved when doing so.The research presented a unique opportunity to track the outcomes for young people over 10 years, by accessing case files relating to young people who were involved with Children’s Services in Wales in the year 2006, whose cases were all reviewed that year as part of an exercise for developing the Sexual ExploitationRisk Assessment Framework (SERAF) in Wales.This was the first instance in the UK in which all children and young people agedbetween 9 and 18 years who were involved with Children’s Services across a single local authority, were each assessed for their risk in relation to sexual exploitation.The research methodology combined thematic case file analysis, and quantitative coding of each case file to create a rich longitudinal dataset for analysis. A substantial part of the research involved qualitative and ethnographic research with young people, practitioners, and foster carers.

Reports into incidents of child death and serious injury have highlighted consistently that a cause for concern has been the capacity of social workers to communicate skilfully with children. In response, there has been a growing emphasis on training social workers in their communication skills. While a welcome development, training can often be perceived and experienced in terms of obtaining practical tips to aid the verbal and non-verbal communication process. We argue that more fundamental to ‘connected’ communicative encounters are intrinsic qualities that are difficult to identify, define and ‘package’. Using a social pedagogical approach and drawing on data collected as part of an Economic and Social Research Council funded UK-wide, four nations, qualitative study exploring social workers’ communicative practices with children, this paper will consider how social workers manage to connect, or not, with children. The social pedagogical concepts of ‘haltung’ (attitude), ‘head, heart and hands’ and ‘the common third’ are outlined as potentially helpful approaches for understanding the intimacies of inter-personal connections and enhancing social workers’ capacity to establish and sustain meaningful communication and connections with children in the face of austere organisational contexts.

Reports into incidents of child death and serious injury have highlighted consistently concern about the capacity of social workers to communicate skilfully with children. Drawing on data collected as part of an Economic and Social Research Council funded UK-wide research project exploring social workers’ communicative practices with children, this paper explores how approaches informed by social pedagogy can assist social workers in connecting and communicating children. The qualitative research included data generated from 82 observations of social workers’ everyday encounters with children. Social pedagogical concepts of ‘haltung’ (attitude), ‘head, heart and hands’ and ‘the common third’ are outlined as potentially helpful approaches for facilitating the intimacies of inter-personal connections and enhancing social workers’ capacity to establish and sustain meaningful communication and relationships with children in the face of austere social, political and organisational contexts.

Reports into incidents of child death and serious injury have highlighted consistently concern about the capacity of social workers to communicate skilfully with children. Drawing on data collected as part of an Economic and Social Research Council funded UK-wide research project exploring social workers' communicative practices with children, this paper explores how approaches informed by social pedagogy can assist social workers in connecting and communicating with with children. The qualitative research included data generated from 82 observations of social workers' everyday encounters with children. Social pedagogical concepts of ‘haltung’ (attitude), ‘head, heart and hands’ and ‘the common third’ are outlined as potentially helpful approaches for facilitating the intimacies of inter-personal connections and enhancing social workers' capacity to establish and sustain meaningful communication and relationships with children in the face of austere social, political and organisational contexts.

Reports into incidents of child death and serious injury have highlighted consistently concern about the capacity of social workers to communicate skilfully with children. Drawing on data collected as part of an Economic and Social Research Council funded UK-wide research project exploring social workers’ communicative practices with children, this paper explores how approaches informed by social pedagogy can assist social workers in connecting and communicating children. The qualitative research included data generated from 82 observations of social workers’ everyday encounters with children. Social pedagogical concepts of ‘haltung’ (attitude), ‘head, heart and hands’ and ‘the common third’ are outlined as potentially helpful approaches for facilitating the intimacies of inter-personal connections and enhancing social workers’ capacity to establish and sustain meaningful communication and relationships with children in the face of austere social, political and organisational contexts.

A growing awareness of child sexual exploitation (CSE) in the United Kingdom and throughout the world has prompted human service and legal/policy professionals to seek ways of engaging young people experiencing sexual exploitation, although much remains unknown regarding effective practice, and whether or not current knowledge regarding best practices with young people can be expanded to address CSE. This paper considers how principles of harm reduction, a public health approach widely used to engage adults and young people in help-seeking behaviours, can be considered as part of a children's rights-centred approach to policy and practice with young people experiencing CSE.

Communication with children is fundamental to the social worker role of protecting and promoting the wellbeing of vulnerable children. It enables social workers to form and maintain relationships with a child, learn about the child’s situation and understand the child’s perspective. Existing knowledge about how children and social workers communicate with each other is fragmented, partial and… Little is known about how children and social workers, in their everyday encounters, experience the same interaction. This paper focuses on the second phase of a UK research council funded project – Talking and Listening to Children – in which children who are looked after and their social workers reflect on their experiences of a professional encounter. Utilising video stimulated recall techniques child-social worker dyads were videoed taking part in an everyday interaction, e.g an informal preparatory meeting for a formal review meeting. Each of the participants then had the opportunity to review the video footage of the encounter and to discuss with the researcher where they felt both parties in the exchange were in agreement, or not, with what was happening in the communication process.The paper will present key findings from the research, make recommendations for how the findings can enhance good communication practices with children and young people and consider how the use of video stimulated recall as a research methodology can empower both children and professionals in the interest of practice improvement.

This report presents the findings of research that explored the educational experiences attainment and aspirations of looked after children and young people (LACYP) in Wales.\ud The findings of the report are drawn from interviews with LACYP and an analysis of available statistics and literature on the looked after children population.

The thesis examines a social phenomenon that has come to be referred to within UK policy discourse as ‘child sexual exploitation’. It is a qualitative, inter-disciplinary study, presenting new data drawn from a series of semi-structured interviews. Two groups of interviewees feature in the thesis: young people with personal experience of sexual exploitation; and professionals with varied responsibilities for identification and onward referral in this area. The aim of the thesis is to provide an in-depth understanding of child sexual exploitation through a thematic analysis of the rich accounts provided by those directly involved. \ud The thesis is about child sexual exploitation. At the same time it is about a range of problems – personal, social and professional – that beset and inform this public issue. The thesis explores the wider problems experienced by young people with particular experience of child sexual exploitation, and also the problems experienced by professionals seeking to work effectively with young people identified in this way. However, at root the thesis addresses the possibility that (further) problems might arise from the way in which ‘child sexual exploitation’ itself is conceptualised within policy frameworks in Wales. In particular, the thesis develops an analysis that is critical of policy that wholly defines and provides an explanation for ‘child sexual exploitation’ according to a ‘grooming model’ – and one in which children and young people figure predominantly as the passive victims of predatory adult perpetrators. The findings suggest that there are multiple forms of sexual exploitation, and central to any understanding of sexual exploitation is that underpinning the exchange of sex is the meeting (and taking advantage) of unmet needs. The findings also relay broader messages about the role of care in prevention and intervention work. \ud Whilst the thesis acknowledges and in no way dismisses ‘grooming’ as a way of understanding child sexual exploitation, it is argued that a re-articulation of the grooming model is needed in order to recognize that children and young people can be aware of the coercive nature of their relationships, and to give greater weight to the reasons why they may choose to stay in exploitative relationships. In addition, it is argued that ‘child sexual exploitation’ (as a policy concept) should include other kinds of transactional sex which may be more transient, but equally raise questions about the range of choices available to young people that prompt them to exchange sex for financial, emotional or material reward. \ud The thesis is exploratory and critical in its contribution to an understanding of child sexual exploitation and professional practice, and seeks to provide insights and understanding to a mixed audience, both academic and professional.