ExChange Wales

Children receiving care and support (CRCS) from the child welfare system represent a vulnerable subpopulation who often face complex and multifaceted challenges, usually stemming from abuse, neglect, or disability. Despite the significant health disparities associated with this group, limited research has explored how these outcomes differ across ethnic and religious identities.This paper addresses this gap by examining ethnic and religious differences in healthcare utilisation among CRCS children using comprehensive linked administrative data from Wales. We linked CRCS records from 2017 to 2019 with the 2011 and 2021 Office for National Statistics Census data to identify the child’s religious affiliation and improve ethnicity completeness. Additionally, we integrated these records with primary and secondary care health data for the corresponding years.Leveraging these innovative data linkages, we assessed ethnic and religious variations in two key areas: (1) the likelihood of accessing different healthcare services (General Practitioner [GP], hospital inpatient care, and Accident & Emergency [A&E]) and (2) the probability of using healthcare for common conditions, like mental health issues and injuries.Presenter: Yongchao Jing, Research Associate in CASCADEYongchao is a Research Associate on the Health and Care Research Wales (HCRW) funded project Ethnic and Religious Inequalities in Children Welfare (ERICA) exploring ethnic inequality in children’s social care by applying complex data linkage techniques with administrative data in Wales within SAIL databank. She has published with the ERICA research team on ethnic disproportionality in the child welfare system (https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcae117) and a pre-print on ethnic inequality in educational outcomes for children receiving social care (https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/cwyr7_v1).

The ASPIRE Project (Actioning a Schools & Prisons Independent Research Evaluation)In July 2023, the Welsh Government commissioned the ASPIRE Team for a 12-month period to provide options and considerations for a national model of support to improve wellbeing and educational outcomes for children affected by parental imprisonment in Wales. The ASPIRE team is a collaboration led by Families Outside (a national Scottish charity that supports families affected by imprisonment) and supported by two academics, two independent consultants specialising in policy and practice related to children affected by imprisonment, and two research assistants.The study involved five phases of data collection, and included interviews with children, interviews with mothers, observation of the School Zone operating in HMP Parc and HMP Cardiff, and focus groups with fathers in prison. The study also involved a roundtable, stakeholder event held at Cardiff University.This webinar will present the key findings from the study and the recommendations for a pan Wales model of support for children and young people in Wales who have a parent in prison.Presenters and Panellists:Dr. Ben Raikes (Security Lead and Head of Governance) is a Senior Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Huddersfield.Professor Nancy Loucks OBE, Chief Executive of Families Outside, and visiting Professor at Strathclyde University.Professor Alyson Rees is a Professor in the School of Social Sciences and Assistant Director of CASCADE Research Centre at Cardiff University.Sylvia Stevenson (Research Assistant) a final-year PhD student at Cardiff University, exploring services in Wales that support birth parents following the compulsory removal of their children by local authorities.

This presentation will include findings from ‘Wellbeing in Schools and Colleges (WiSC)’, an empirical research study in Wales, where the objective was to understand stakeholder experiences of delivering and receiving mental health and wellbeing provision for care-experienced children and young people (CYP) in secondary schools and FE Colleges, in order to develop recommendations to enhance service quality and ensure equitable access. In particular, it explored the relationships between social workers, school and college staff, mental health professionals, and care-experienced CYP and how they impacted on delivery and receipt of wellbeing provision. The focus of the presentation will be on the qualitative findings from this mixed methods study including case studies with secondary schools, FE colleges, social care teams, and mental health teams. Firstly, study themes relating to care-experienced CYP’s mental health and wellbeing needs and how schools and colleges try to meet these needs will be explored. Then themes relating to the role of cross-professional boundary working between social care and education staff will be discussed, including the challenges and opportunities of working in this way and how they differ according to age and care experience, e.g. foster care and kinship care. The presentation will conclude with recommendations for practice and policy in relation to care-experienced CYP’s mental health and wellbeing in educational settings and as they transition between them.Presenter: Dr. Sarah MacDonald, Research Associate, DECIPHer Research Centre, Cardiff University.

The Basic Income for Care Leavers in Wales pilot, launched in July 2022, is unique in several ways. No other basic income scheme has given regular payments as large as those received by young people involved in the pilot, nor have other basic income schemes been open to a national cohort of care leavers from the age of 18 for two years of payments. The pilot is being evaluated by a team led by researchers at CASCADE, Cardiff University and the evaluation is now in its second year. This session is based on the first annual report from the study, which includes early findings. We will describe the group of young people receiving the basic income, present a picture of how the scheme is intended to work, and discuss perceptions and experiences of professionals involved with the scheme.Presenter: David Westlake, Co-Investigator, CASCADE at Cardiff University.Further information about the programme can be found on the CASCADE website: https://cascadewales.org/research/the-welsh-basic-income-evaluation/