Dr Nina Maxwell
Joint Specialty Lead for Social Care
Health and Care Research Wales funding award:
Award: Research Funding Scheme: Social Care Grant ( October 2020 - March 2022)
Project title: County lines: a co-ordinated Welsh community response to child criminal exploitation
Biography
Nina Maxwell is a chartered psychologist and mixed methods researcher with interests in three areas: adolescence, workforce development and private family law.
Nina's research on adolescence focuses on improving the outcomes for young people. She has undertaken numerous research and evaluation studies across a range of areas including adoption, child criminal exploitation, father engagement, home education, and youth violence. She is currently leading a study in partnership with Barnardo’s on the development of local co-ordinated responses to county lines in Wales.
Nina's research on adolescence highlighted the significance of workforce development. This has led to an interest in staff training and development. She has conducted research on fast track training programmes for social workers as well as the effects of specific training such as Video Interaction Guidance.
Finally, Nina has conducted several evidence reviews in private family law, e.g. shared parenting, and parental alienation. More recently, she conducted a research study on the development of Supporting Separating Families Alliances in Wales.
Nina's research interests have come together in a key part of her current role - in which she is coordinating and developing the evaluative work of CASCADE as part of Health and Care Research Wales infrastructure funding. This is an exciting opportunity to bring her areas of interest together and to develop the skills and knowledge of other researchers. This strand of Nina's work is being delivered in partnership with Professor Mike Robling of the Centre for Trials Research, and she is looking forward to exploring the development of advanced evaluative methodologies across children's social care.
Read more about their work:
Child criminal exploitation “toolkit” brings services together to protect children in Wales (February 2023)
£6.4 million to support vital health and social care research in Wales (October 2022)
Health and Care Research Wales announces recipients of 2019-20 funding awards worth over £5 million (October 2022)
Health and Care Research Wales invests in leaders across Wales to shape the research of the future (April 2022)