Prof. Jenny Driscoll brings a children’s rights-based approach to child protection, and her background as a barrister specialising in care proceedings fuels commitment to research designed with the wellbeing and rights of children and young people at the fore.

Jenny has particular expertise in collaborative and multi-agency work for the protection of children in England and in development contexts; in young people’s experience of state care; and in relation to ethical practice in research with children and young people. Recent research includes a study of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on multi-agency child safeguarding practice; an investigation of child-rights based child protection programming in rural Ugandan settings; and an ESRC-funded study of the role of schools in safeguarding children in England. Her book on the educational and relational experiences of young people transitioning from care to independence was published by Routledge in 2018.

Jenny is currently leading a two-year project commissioned by the Department of Health and Social Care and funded by the National Institute of Health and Care Research to evaluate multi-agency child safeguarding arrangements in England. She is also co-leading a project on youth-focused climate change litigation with Prof. Megan Bowman in the Dickson Poon School of Law.

Jenny is Co-Editor of Child Abuse Review, the official journal of the Association of Child Protection Professionals, published by Wiley.

Research

Jenny’s research interests focus on children's rights and child protection, including:

• Multi-agency/inter-professional arrangements for child safeguarding/protection
• Child protection systems
• Children in and leaving state care
• The role of schools in safeguarding
• Child rights-based approaches in humanitarian aid/ development settings
• Youth-focused climate change litigation

Jenny is a member of the Centre for Public Policy Research.

Teaching

Jenny teaches and/or supervises students on the following programmes:

• MA International Child Rights and Development
• BA Social Sciences

She teaches on the modules entitled Contributions on Children, Families and the State; Global Childhoods Past and Present; and Child Protection.

PhD supervision

Jenny is happy to consider applications on a range of areas related to Children's Rights Child Protection Multi-agency child safeguarding

Current PhD students:

• Fionna McLaughlan - 'Care experienced young people and HE decision making: How do care experienced young people make choices about progressing to Higher Education, and to what extent is the decision-making process supported by virtual schools?'
• Katrina Kiss - 'Understanding child marriage amongst girls with disabilities in Zimbabwe: Implications for an intersectional and gender transformative approach to child marriage programming and policy'
• Hannah Jull - 'Acting ‘on Behalf of’ Disabled Children, From Parenting to Policy' 

Impact

Jenny frequently presents at events that are primarily aimed at professionals, including a keynote speech at the Westminster Education Forum on Reforming Child Protection (2013); Chair of the Teachology conference, Safeguarding Children in Education, (2014); and presentations at the Doughty Street Chambers seminar, Celebrating 25 years of the UNCR (2014), and the Sweet and Maxwell Human Rights Conference, (2014).

She was National Reporter (UK) on the implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child for the 19th International Congress of Comparative Law in Vienna in 2014. Jenny was a keynote speaker at an International symposium in Okayama City, Japan, on Children’s welfare and rights in the UK child protection system (2013).

She is a member of the British Association for the Prevention and Study of Child Abuse and Neglect (BAPSCAN), the British Association for Adoption and Fostering (BAAF); the Children’s Rights Alliance for England (CRAE); and the Family Law Bar Association.

Further information

For further details please see Jenny's research staff profile.