Children, young people and families

Our cluster is dedicated to advancing the wellbeing of children, young people and families. We connect research insights to real-world practices across health, education and social care.

Expertise

We have expertise in children’s social care, public health and health services. Our team also focuses on early childhood education and care, as well as children’s rights in policy and public discussions.

Our interests in this area span the following:

Exploring how children, young people, and families experience health and wellbeing in their everyday lives. We pay attention to their social and material conditions, and how these are influenced by politics and culture.
We look at how services like social care, healthcare, schools, preschool care and charities support children, young people, and families. We want to understand how these services can help people live healthy and happy lives.
We conduct research about the children’s workforce. We make comparisons across nations. This includes social pedagogy, an approach common in European countries that frames social issues through an educational lens. It provides an ethical and theoretical framework for supporting people’s wellbeing, learning and sense of belonging.

Methods

We lead on innovative qualitative and participatory research. We also conduct quantitative analyses, including work with large, linked datasets. In addition, we carry out international comparative studies. This is research into how policies, services, or experiences differ or are similar between nations.

Funders

Our work has been widely funded. This includes by:

Administrative Data Research UK
Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)
Foundations
National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR)
the Nuffield Foundation
UK Prevention Research Partnership.

Find out more about our projects

NIHR Children and Families Research Unit

The NIHR Children and Families Policy Research Unit is jointly led from TCRU and the UCL Institute of Child Health. This programme of work is funded to provide high quality, timely evidence to policy colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care.