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All Outputs (22)

‘Contextual safeguarding across borders’: learning about the ‘contextual safeguarding’ framework and youth ‘extra-familial’ harm in Germany (2025)
Journal Article
Wroe, L. E., Huegler, N., & Peace, D. (online). ‘Contextual safeguarding across borders’: learning about the ‘contextual safeguarding’ framework and youth ‘extra-familial’ harm in Germany. European Journal of Social Work, https://doi.org/10.1080/13691457.2025.2505233

We share learning from a collaborative project involving researchers at Durham university in England and an International Non-Government Organisation (INGO) supporting refugee girls in Germany. The project explored how the ‘Contextual Safeguarding’ f... Read More about ‘Contextual safeguarding across borders’: learning about the ‘contextual safeguarding’ framework and youth ‘extra-familial’ harm in Germany.

Race, class and the weaponisation of child safety (2025)
Journal Article
Wroe, L. E., & Vaughn, L. (2025). Race, class and the weaponisation of child safety. Critical and Radical Social Work, 13(2), 148-154. https://doi.org/10.1332/20498608Y2025D000000074

As we sit down to write this editorial, the ‘debate’ about ‘Asian grooming gangs’ in the UK has once again hit global news stories and is circulating in the corridors of Parliament. This is a decades-spanning debacle whereby far-right groups, conserv... Read More about Race, class and the weaponisation of child safety.

Bad medicine? Drugs policing, harm reduction and social inequality (2025)
Book Chapter
Mason, W., & Wroe, L. (2025). Bad medicine? Drugs policing, harm reduction and social inequality. In Handbook on Crime and Inequality (148-171). https://doi.org/10.4337/9781800883604.00015

This chapter extends studies of crime and inequality by examining two state interventions associated with drugs policing and safeguarding through the lens of social harm. Drawing on detailed case studies, we surface tensions within crime reduction an... Read More about Bad medicine? Drugs policing, harm reduction and social inequality.

‘Relocating Adolescents’: The Costs of Out-of-Area Placements as a Response to Extra-Familial Risk/Harm (2024)
Journal Article
Holmes, L., Pinto, V. S., Wroe, L. E., Peace, D., & Firmin, C. (2024). ‘Relocating Adolescents’: The Costs of Out-of-Area Placements as a Response to Extra-Familial Risk/Harm. The British Journal of Social Work, 54(8), 3658-3678. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcae109

In the UK, there has been increased awareness of the harm adolescents face beyond their families. There is no national strategy for safeguarding adolescents. One intervention that comes with particularly high costs is relocation placements by childre... Read More about ‘Relocating Adolescents’: The Costs of Out-of-Area Placements as a Response to Extra-Familial Risk/Harm.

Relationship of trust and surveillance in the first national piloting of Contextual Safeguarding in England and Wales (2024)
Journal Article
Wroe, L. E., & Manister, M. (2024). Relationship of trust and surveillance in the first national piloting of Contextual Safeguarding in England and Wales. Critical and Radical Social Work, 12(2), 205-229. https://doi.org/10.1332/20498608y2023d000000014

This article analyses data collected as part of a three-year study supporting the implementation of Contextual Safeguarding across nine children’s social care teams in England and Wales as an approach to safeguarding adolescents at risk of harm in ‘e... Read More about Relationship of trust and surveillance in the first national piloting of Contextual Safeguarding in England and Wales.

‘County lines’: racism, safeguarding and statecraft in Britain (2023)
Journal Article
Koch, I., Williams, P., & Wroe, L. (2024). ‘County lines’: racism, safeguarding and statecraft in Britain. Race & Class, 65(3), 3-26. https://doi.org/10.1177/03063968231201325

Government policies relating to dealers in ‘county lines’ drugs trafficking cases have been welcomed as a departure from punitive approaches to drugs and ‘gang’ policing, in that those on the bottom rung of the drugs economy of heroin and crack cocai... Read More about ‘County lines’: racism, safeguarding and statecraft in Britain.

From peers and parks to patriarchy and poverty: inequalities in young people’s experiences of extra-familial harm and the child protection system (2023)
Book Chapter
Wroe, L., Lloyd, J., & Manister, M. (2023). From peers and parks to patriarchy and poverty: inequalities in young people’s experiences of extra-familial harm and the child protection system. In C. Firmin, & J. Lloyd (Eds.), Contextual Safeguarding: The Next Chapter (17-29). Policy Press. https://doi.org/10.56687/9781447366454-007

A body of social work literature evidences the relationship between the wider contexts of young people’s lives, such as poverty, austerity, racism and so on, their experiences of harm and the child protection response to it. This literature casts a l... Read More about From peers and parks to patriarchy and poverty: inequalities in young people’s experiences of extra-familial harm and the child protection system.

Identifying and responding to structural and system drivers of extra-familial harm using a Contextual Safeguarding approach (2023)
Book Chapter
Manister, M., Wroe, L., & Adams Elias, C. (2023). Identifying and responding to structural and system drivers of extra-familial harm using a Contextual Safeguarding approach. In C. Firmin, & J. Lloyd (Eds.), Contextual Safeguarding: The Next Chapter (30-43). Policy Press. https://doi.org/10.56687/9781447366454-008

As the previous chapter has shown, there is a case to be made for thinking about context beyond physical location and into how inequalities shape the places and spaces where young people spend their time. By exploring how racism, poverty, ableism, se... Read More about Identifying and responding to structural and system drivers of extra-familial harm using a Contextual Safeguarding approach.

Social Care Responses to Children who Experience Criminal Exploitation and Violence: The Conditions for a Welfare Response (2023)
Journal Article
Lloyd, J., Manister, M., & Wroe, L. (2023). Social Care Responses to Children who Experience Criminal Exploitation and Violence: The Conditions for a Welfare Response. The British Journal of Social Work, 53(8), 3725-3743. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcad145

This article explores social care responses to children experiencing criminal exploitation and violence. The article draws on data from two children’s social care departments in England applying a Contextual Safeguarding framework to extra-familial h... Read More about Social Care Responses to Children who Experience Criminal Exploitation and Violence: The Conditions for a Welfare Response.

‘Relocating’ Adolescents from Risk beyond the Home: What Do We Learn When We Ask about Safety? (2023)
Journal Article
Wroe, L. E., Peace, D., & Firmin, C. (2023). ‘Relocating’ Adolescents from Risk beyond the Home: What Do We Learn When We Ask about Safety?. The British Journal of Social Work, 53(5), 2958–2978. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcad077

There is an absence of evidence supporting the use of ‘out-of-area placements’ to address risks adolescents face beyond the home. Approximately one in ten adolescents in England and Wales are ‘relocated’ from their hometowns by children’s social care... Read More about ‘Relocating’ Adolescents from Risk beyond the Home: What Do We Learn When We Ask about Safety?.

‘Already doing the work’: social work, abolition and building the future from the present (2022)
Journal Article
Hunter, D., & Wroe, L. E. (2024). ‘Already doing the work’: social work, abolition and building the future from the present. Critical and Radical Social Work, 12(3), 312–329. https://doi.org/10.1332/204986021x16626426254068

Social work internationally is currently subject to debate. Some call for the abolition of social work, detailing legacies of harm, inadequate practices and theoretical limitations. Central to abolitionist thought is the tradition of community work t... Read More about ‘Already doing the work’: social work, abolition and building the future from the present.

When Helping Hurts: A Zemiological Analysis of a Child Protection Intervention in Adolescence—Implications for a Critical Child Protection Studies (2022)
Journal Article
Wroe, L. E. (2022). When Helping Hurts: A Zemiological Analysis of a Child Protection Intervention in Adolescence—Implications for a Critical Child Protection Studies. Social Sciences, 11(6), Article 263. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci11060263

This paper presents data from a three-year, mixed methods study into the rate and impact of ‘relocation’ as a response to extra-familial harm in adolescence by children’s social care teams. Participatory approaches to research design, data collection... Read More about When Helping Hurts: A Zemiological Analysis of a Child Protection Intervention in Adolescence—Implications for a Critical Child Protection Studies.

Last Resort or Best Interest? Exploring the Risk and Safety Factors That Inform the Rates of Relocation for Young People Abused in Extra-Familial Settings (2021)
Journal Article
Firmin, C., Wroe, L., & Bernard, D. (2022). Last Resort or Best Interest? Exploring the Risk and Safety Factors That Inform the Rates of Relocation for Young People Abused in Extra-Familial Settings. The British Journal of Social Work, 52(1), 573–592. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcab106

When young people are harmed in extra-familial settings children’s services may place them into care at a distance from their home authority to remove them from contexts in which they are considered ‘at risk’. Guidance and regulation suggest such int... Read More about Last Resort or Best Interest? Exploring the Risk and Safety Factors That Inform the Rates of Relocation for Young People Abused in Extra-Familial Settings.