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About our blog

This blog aims to be a forum to share the study findings with practitioners, academics, foster/kinship carers, adoptive parents and young people.

Topics in the blog will be relevant to the study, and will include: foster/kinship care, adoption, young people leaving care, resilience, early adversity, mental health/wellbeing, support, social services, attachment, etc. Posts will be written by members of the research team but also others, such as academics in the field, social care agencies and voluntary organisations, other practitioners, foster/kinship carers, adoptive parents and young people.

The blog will also serve to inform of the progress made in the study, and to discuss aspects of it.

Developments during the 4th Phase

The idea to develop rolling blog posts as a means to keep people informed of developments during the 4th Phase of the Care Pathways and Outcomes Study was conceived by the former study Research Fellow, Montse Fargas Malet.

Consequently, she oversaw this process between 2016-19, and produced and posted all blog posts, with the exception of one posted by myself on carer stress, and another by a colleague from Queen’s University (Grace Kelly) on disability.

All previous blog entries can be viewed below. They provide a useful walk through of the study as well as hopefully being thought provoking.

The study and consequently the blog have now migrated to Ulster University and this year the blog will be taken over by the current Research Associate Grainne McAnee.

The fieldwork for Phase 4 of the study is continuing and further projects updates are planned for this year 2022, with the study due to end in December 2022.

Enjoy!