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Staff profile

Overview

Rachael Owens

Assistant Professor (Research)

Affiliations
Affiliation
Assistant Professor (Research) in the Department of Sociology

Biography

I am an inter-disciplinary social researcher with a professional background in social work practice and the creative arts. My research focusses on how the development of Contextual Safeguarding can help to create humane social care practices in response to adolescent harm. I am committed to holding and bringing together the values embedded in relationships-based practice, where emotions are taken seriously; along with critical, ecological/eco-systems thinking, which encourages contextual and structural change. For this reason I make research that is all about working in partnership with practitioners, parents and young people, using collaborative, creative and participatory methods to think, feel, learn and create change together.  

Current projects

From Capacity to Context (2024-2027): I am Principle Investigator on this three year research study funded by Esmee Fairbairn Foundation. We have joined with the Ivison Trust and a Local Authority children's social care department to bring together two consortia of parents and relevant professionals: one made up of parents of adolescents and the other parents who are adolescents (‘young’ parents). The project uses participatory, arts-based methods to build connection and learn together about how safeguarding practice can shift from a culture of scruitinising 'parental capacity' to one characterised by supporting the context of parents' lives. Our aim is to ensure that the policy changes taking place in the child protection system (like the new Risk Outside The Home pathway for children facing extra-familial harm) are inclusive of all parents, not just those who fit into a particular definition. 

Local Authority Interest Network (ongoing): I am part of the Contextual Safeguarding Research's leadership team and my responsibilies include Strategic Leadership of the Contextual Safeguarding Local Area Interest Network (LAIN). This involves providing strategic advice, support and direction to our network of over 75 Local Authority members (comprising approximately 400 practitioners) on their implementation of Contextual Safeguarding. The LAIN creates a bridge between Contextual Safeguarding research and implementation and fosters a supportive and collegiate community of practice and leadership. 'Sustaining Social Work' reserach (see below) evidenced that there are many systemic barriers to doing Contextual Safeguarding and this can lead to practice that does not align with its core domains and values and, often relatedly, practitioner moral distress/injury. The network exists to support the integration of the Contextual Safeguarding framework at a local level, through relationships, dialogue and critical engagement with research, and to ensure that those committed to this type of system change can keep going.

Risk Outside The Home Pathway (2024-2027): I provide expert research advice and support to this DfE funded pilot into a new category of harm within child protection statutory processes, for young people experiencing significant harm. My contribution focusses on both the implementation of the Contextual Outcomes Framework into child protection plans (see below) and on the role and position of parents within the any policy changes that take place.

Completed projects

Sustaining Social Work (2022-2024): I was the Principle Investigator for this collaborative research into the experiences of social workers (and related professionals) of doing Contextual Safeguarding. The research led to a set of recommendations about the need for policy reform, principally 1) the urgent need for policy guidance and practice support around the role of social care within multi-agency extra-familial harm responses, particularly in relation to criminal justice partners; and 2) the importance of peer support to foster solidarity between those engaged in Contextual Safeguarding implementation, due to the counter-cultural nature of doing contextual practice within the current social care system. Both these recommendations have influenced the design and direction of my current projects (see above). 

Responses and Outcomes (2022-2024): I was the Principle Investigator for this research into the role of Family Group Conferencing as a Contextual Safeguarding response, drawing on the cross-overs between these ecological approaches. This project was co-developed with Kent and Wiltshire Councils and Wiltshire Daybreak and led to the publication of new practice guidance and case studies. Following the project we have established an FGC and Contextual Safeguarding 'community of practice', which supports the implementation and impact of this research, using reflective group discussion methods for co-learning. In this project I also trialled and produced a new Contextual Outcomes Framework. Building on earlier work of the Contextual Safeguarding research team around assessing contexts, the framework provides a systematic and robust way of setting goals and measuring outcomes for responses that aim to make contexts (like parks or schools) safer for groups of children who spend time in them.  

Innovate Project (2023-2023): I provided expert research support on this ESRC funded multi-site research project.  As part of this work I co-authored a book on Innovation in Social Care (see below), using psycho-social analyses to conceptualise the barriers to humane practice in social work in situations of adolescent harm outsider the home.  

Scale-Up (2019-2022): I was co-investigator on this project which involved researching and supporting system change in line with Contextual Safeguarding within nice Local Authority children’s social care departments.  As part of this I co-produced a toolkit of multi-media practice facing resources to support the social care sector in implementing Contextual Safeguarding.

Background

My social care career began in the voluntary sector. I worked in a range of settings - from physical disabilities and mental health to family support. After qualifying as a social worker in 2014, I have specialised in adolescent safety and wellbeing. My PhD (in Social Work and Social Care, University of Sussex) was a collaborative doctorate with The Family Nurse Partnership (FNP) - a national, public health organisation who oversee an early intervention programme for young parents. My research looked at the FNP model, integrating psycho-social and practice-near methodologies with critical and sociological perspectives. Alongside my PhD, I worked for Hackney Children’s Services, setting up and running a service for young people who were thought to be ‘missing’ from home.

When the Contextual Safeguarding research team came to Hackney Children’s Services in 2017 (DfE Children’s Social Care Innovation Programme), I worked alongside the research team as a Practice Development Manager, developing policy and processes to support this new approach to practice. 

I am a member of GAPS – the social work organisation promoting systemic, therapeutic and relationship-based approaches to social work

Research interests

  • Practice research
  • Adolescent safety and harm
  • Social work and social care workforce
  • Organisations and social systems
  • Critical approaches to ‘young’ parenthood and ‘young’ motherhood
  • Relationships-based approaches
  • Inter-disciplinary research
  • Creative and arts based methodologies in social research
  • Psycho-social methodologies

Esteem Indicators

  • 2022: BASW's Children and Families Thematic Group:

Publications

Authored book

Chapter in book

Conference Paper

Doctoral Thesis

Journal Article

Other (Digital/Visual Media)