Children at Risk Research Development Network: a thriving Three Schools collaboration
The Children at Risk Research Development Network (RDN) is a collaboration focused on preventing children’s social care involvement, and offers a great example of how Three Schools links can foster exciting programmes of research activity. It is led through a partnership between the University of Sheffield (as an NIHR School for Social Care Research member) and the University of Liverpool’s Health Inequalities Policy Research Group (as an NIHR School for Public Health Research member within LiLaC). The RDN was initially funded by an NIHR Three Schools Prevention Programme RDN grant which supported a series of workshops that brought together academics, policy and practice partners, people with lived experience of the child protection system, and local and national charities. These workshops helped set a shared research agenda that directly underpinned two successful NIHR Three Schools research bids:
- Evaluation of the Family Safeguarding Model integrated with anti-poverty initiatives (Three Schools Practice Evaluation Scheme): This project examines how embedding anti-poverty support within the Family Safeguarding Model—implemented in Liverpool—can reduce child protection interventions and improve mental health outcomes for families in need. It seeks to demonstrate how a combined approach may offer a more holistic and effective preventive strategy than standard social care models alone.
- Informing policy and practice to prevent care entry through a better understanding of ‘neglect’ and its impacts (Three Schools Research Project grant): This study aims to deepen our understanding of the nature, causes, and consequences of neglect, with the goal of identifying actionable insights that can inform more effective early interventions and policy frameworks. By clarifying how neglect manifests and impacts families, the project will support the development of prevention-oriented strategies and evidence-based policy recommendations to reduce care entry.
Together, these projects reflect the RDN’s commitment not only to advancing knowledge but also to ensuring tangible impact for children, families and services, while laying the foundations for a continuing programme of collaborative, high-quality research to shape future policy and practice.