Centre for the Study of Safety and Wellbeing

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Centre for the Study of Safety & Wellbeing (SWELL)

Putting Research-generated Knowledge and Collaborative Scholarship at the Service of Policy and Practice

Introduction

The Centre for the Study of Safety and Well-being (SWELL) is a nationally and internationally recognised research centre which mainly focuses on researching violence against women and children and child care/protection issues. The Centre aims to:

focus on the safety and well-being of vulnerable groups, particularly children, young people and women;
apply feminist, child centred, youth-centred and anti-oppressive understandings to research and scholarship;
provide a sound evidence-base for policy and practice, using the full range of social science research methods
foster an active research climate;
offer education, training and opportunities for research study in fields such as child care and child protection, family support, health and welfare practice in relation to family law, in work with child and adult survivors of abuse and perpetrators;
promote seminars, reading groups and conferences;
disseminate research findings to a range of appropriate audiences;
assist in implementing research in policy and practice.

SWELL research efforts have most recently been concentrated in the following areas:

Child contact and child protection;
The effects of domestic violence on mother-child relationships
Women experiencing domestic violence and the risks to their economic, health and personal independence;
The experiences of Black, Minority Ethnic and Refugee Women and Children experiencing gendered violence and the care system
Promoting women’s and children’s safety through the legal system and intervention programmes for male domestic violence offenders
Multi-agency working and risk assessment.
Sexual abuse and sexual violence
Digital technologies & child abuse
Domestic violence & disabled women
Bride price

Members of SWELL share an overarching interest in social justice and how social divisions (including in terms of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, disability, age and socio-economic status impact on gendered violence). We take a critical approach to policy and practice, in particular, applying feminist, child-centred, youth-centred and anti-oppressive understandings to relevant areas of research and theory.

Members of SWELL share a commitment to research projects that are anti-oppressive in their process as well as in their aims. We seek to research with and for people, rather than simply ‘about’ them. We share an interest in people who live in the most difficult circumstances, and who experience abuse and exploitation, but we believe they have much to teach us if we have the skills and the willingness to listen. We work to give a voice to previously unheard and invisible groups.

Members of SWELL share long-standing concerns about what constitutes ‘child-centred’ research and practice, and how it may be possible genuinely to work with children and young people. We ally these concerns with feminist values, both in ‘cross-over’ topics such as the impact of domestic violence on children and in all-encompassing concerns such as the analysis of power and powerlessness.

The Work of the Centre

Since its inception in 2002, the Centre continues to maintain and build on its programme of research and to influence policy and practice at both local and national levels. This has involved the centre in collaborative work with:

Voluntary and statutory agencies.
Women’s Organisations and local authorities and between the Centre and government departments, such as the Home Office, Department for Education and Skills and Department for Constitutional Affairs.

A central aspect of SWELL's work is how our research continues to highlight the connections between forms of violence experienced by women and children.

SWELL members' theoretical developments and research practice is oriented towards further developing explanations and responses to gendered violence through examining:

The interconnections between different forms of gendered violence
Increasing understanding about the intersections of gendered violence and various social locations such as race, clan, secuality, able-bodieness, age.

We are interested in new diciplinary combinations and in holding events which bring together a range of academic, policy and practice interests.