Staff profile

Nikki is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and works across the department in Criminology, Sociology and Social Work. She is a registered social worker and co-ordinates placements across undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. (Reg: SW130161).

Nikki completed her ESRC funded doctoral research in 2022 whereby she developed a substantive theory of primary-aged child-to-parent violence; using a classical Grounded Theory approach to integrate the perspectives of parents, practitioners, and children themselves. In this work a key focus was that non-intentional forms of harm, such as those instigated by pre-adolescent or neurodivergent children, should be understood through the lens of 'need' and referred to as explosive and harmful impulses.

Research Area

Nikki's research interests include participatory approaches to child and family experiences, expressions, and responses to harm. She is particularly interested in how symbolic representations of 'good mothering' and 'good childhoods' create contexts conducive to family harm, and how this can be challenged.

Most of Nikki's recent work explores research and practice which aims to conceptualise and frame 'child-to-parent violence', and where it may sit on the existing frameworks of child development, domestic abuse, and child safeguarding.

 

Research Groups

• Centre for Research into Violence and Abuse
• Centre for Social Justice and Community Action
• Criminal Justice, Social Harms and Inequalities

Teaching

Nikki has 16 years experience working and volunteering for various women and children's organisations and embeds this experience in her teaching. Her teaching focuses upon critical pedagogy and reflective practice, she is passionate about supporting students to apply their academic (predominantly sociological) knowledge to 'real world' settings. 

Convenor: Practice Education Stage 1- SOCI30220

Convenor: Social Work Practice 1 - SOCI42150

Convenor: Community Placement - SOCI3511

• How symbolic and structural expectations of 'good' children, childhoods, and mothering creates contexts conducive to family harm.
• Child-parent violence
• Neurodivergence
• Parent-carer well-being
• Innovative, feminist, and/or emancipatory research methodologies

Conference Paper

• Rutter, N. (2021, December). Managing violent behaviours in primary schools – A multi-agency risk assessment model. Presented at Imagining Better Education 2020, Durham, England

Journal Article

• Tsang, A., Dahmash, D., Bjornstad, G., Rutter, N., Nisar, A., Horne, F., & Martin, F. (2024). Systematic review and meta-analysis of interventions to improve outcomes for parents or carers of children with anxiety and/or depression. BMJ Open, 27(1), Article e301218. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjment-2024-301218
• Rutter, N., Pilson, A., & Yeo, E. (2024). ‘Yeah, embrace your anger. Fuck them.’: using feminist collaborative autoethnography and an ethics of care to (re)imagine our position as disabled women in academic spaces during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. Feminist Review, 137(1), 53-70. https://doi.org/10.1177/01417789241249629
• Rutter, N. (2024). Explosive and Harmful Impulses: A Subset of Child and Adolescent-to-Parent Violence and Abuse. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, https://doi.org/10.1177/08862605241244470
• Bennion, H., & Rutter, N. (2024). The role of ‘friendship as method’ with child co-researchers in the primary school environment. Educational Action Research, https://doi.org/10.1080/09650792.2024.2310539
• Rutter, N., Hall, K., & Westmarland, N. (2023). Responding to Child and Adolescent to Parent Violence and Abuse from a Distance: Remote Delivery of Interventions during Covid-19. Children & Society, 37(3), 705-721. https://doi.org/10.1111/chso.12622
• Rutter, N. (2023). Rupture, repair, the loss and re-construction of identity: Seeking support in situations of adolescent-to-parent violence and abuse. Frontiers in Health Services, 3, https://doi.org/10.3389/frhs.2023.1139727
• Yeo, E., Pilson, A., Rutter, N., & Hasan, E. (2023). We Need to be as a Group: Using and Evaluating the Listening Guide in Feminist Collaborative Autoethnography With an Affective ‘Fifth Listen’ as a Tool to (re)construct Identities. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 22, 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1177/16094069231180166
• Rutter, N., Hasan, E., Pilson, A., & Yeo, E. (2023). “It’s the End of the PhD as We Know it, and We Feel Fine…Because Everything Is Fucked Anyway”: Utilizing Feminist Collaborative Autoethnography to Navigate Global Crises. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 22, https://doi.org/10.1177/16094069211019595
• Rutter, N. (2023). “My [Search Strategies] Keep Missing You”: A Scoping Review to Map Child-to-Parent Violence in Childhood Aggression Literature. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 20(5), Article 4176. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20054176
• Banks, S., & Rutter, N. (2021). Pandemic ethics: Rethinking rights, responsibilities and roles in social work. The British Journal of Social Work, 52(6), 3460 - 3479. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcab253
• Rutter, N. (2021). “I’m meant to be his comfort blanket, not a punching bag” – Ethnomimesis as an exploration of maternal child to parent violence in pre-adolescents. Qualitative Social Work, 20(5), 1317-1338. https://doi.org/10.1177/1473325020940774
• Rutter, N. (2021). A letter to my co-researchers. Entanglements: experiments in multimodal ethnography, 4(2), 16-18

Report

• Wadman, R., Taylor, O., Qualter, P., Humphrey, N., Wood, M., Mon-Williams, M., & Rutter, N. (online). Improving mental health and wellbeing with and through educational settings. N8
• Alghrani, A., Ali, N., Allen, K., Bennett, H., Benger, L., Betts, J., Bradley, S., Bond, C., van den Bree, M., Brooks, R., Chawner, S., Colbert, E., Copley, C., Daniel, J., Davies, C., Eddy, L., Elshehaly, M., Groen, M., Hartley, C., Henderson, L., …Waterman, A. (2024). An evidence-based plan for addressing the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) assessment and support crisis. Child of the North and the Centre for Young Lives
• Westall, A., & Rutter, N. (2023). Not afraid, to take a stand: Project report from a desk-based review of programmes designed to improve responses to young people’s experiences of abuse. [No known commissioning body]
• Rutter, N. (2021). International Delphi study of specialist practitioner and expert parents views: Child-parent violence initiated by children aged under 12. [No known commissioning body]
• Rutter, N., & Banks, S. (2021). Rethinking Rights, Responsibilities and Risks: Ethical Challenges for UK Social Workers during Covid-19. British Association of Social Workers

Working Paper

• Rutter, N., Ali, N., Purna Basu, A., Basuc, S., Bond, C., Bryant, E. J., Chapman, E., Chauhan, A., Chawner, S. J., Day, P., Douse, E., Eddy, L., Elshehaly, M., Fayette, R., Gladstone, M., Gray-Burrows, K., Guldberg, K., Harris, S., Hartley, C., Lunn, J., …Shaw, J. (2024). An evidence-based plan for addressing the autism assessment and support crisis