As the new round of applications for the Churchill Fellowship launches, current participants are using their own personal and professional experiences of children’s social care to inform policy in the UK through international research.
The programme offers successful applicants the opportunity to receive funding to spend up to two months learning from innovators anywhere in the world.
Social care practitioners and professionals working with children and young people with care experience can apply for an international study fellowship that could see them travel overseas to learn new solutions from experts, and shape policy and practice in the UK.
Grant themes
Children and young people with experience of care is one of nine themes to be included in the new round of Churchill Fellowship grants.
Applications for the specialist programme opened on 4 September and close at 5pm on 12 November.
Applicants will spend their fellowships learning from innovators in their field anywhere in the world, in person or online. A key element of the project is to share ideas and inspire change in the UK, which the fellowship supports.
Current participants are focusing on a wide variety of themes from the treatment of psychosis in young people with experience of care to the benefits of equine therapy.
The 11 successful applicants from 2023 have backgrounds as social workers, mental health workers and some have experience of the UK care system themselves (see below).
Applicants to the children with care experience theme for 2024 will need to show how their project can improve the lives and outcomes of young people with care experience including looked-after children, those on the edge of care, adoptees and care leavers.
Those taking part in this year’s programme include Lucy Peake, chief executive of charity Kinship (see interview, p15) who will be examining the benefits of the USA’s kinship navigator programme with a view to improve peer-to-peer support for kinship carers in the UK.
Niketa Sanderson-Gillard, chief executive of fostering social enterprise Why Care, will spend time investigating the selection and support of foster carers internationally to identify best practices that can be integrated into the British system to address a national crisis in foster care sufficiency.
Applications are also welcome from individuals who aim to increase support for caregivers and families affected by care concerns, from anyone who has contact with young people in care in any context, and care-experienced people themselves.
This year, Omar Mohamed, an Asian British social worker, lecturer and researcher who experienced the care system from birth to 16 years old, will visit black communities in America to establish how the UK system can better support those from minoritised groups.
Youth mental health researcher ZeZe Sohowan’s fellowship is also inspired by her own experience of the care system and in secure mental health units. She will look at the treatment of psychosis in care-experienced young people in Australia, the USA and Canada.
This is the third year that Churchill Fellowship has run the care experience theme. Last year, it awarded 11 fellowships to study projects across Europe, North America and Australasia (see below).
The new round of fellowships are to be undertaken between August 2025 and July 2026. Other themes include arts and communities, physical activities and health, and education in schools.
Children with care experience Churchill fellows in 2024/25
Supporting families living with child to parent/carer violence, Australia, Canada, New Zealand & USA
As an adoptive parent, Al Coates highlights the challenge of supporting children who have experienced early adversity or have special educational needs and are at risk of displaying challenging, violent or aggressive behaviour in the home. The social worker and a certified non-violent resistance practitioner plans to use his fellowship to develop an understanding of how other cultures support these children, parents and adults who work with them in a bid to share this knowledge with practitioners in the UK.
Riding through trauma, USA
Lindsey Crosbie is the director of With Horses CIC, a community interest company set up to ensure that people from all backgrounds can access equine therapy. She aims to investigate the value of therapeutic riding interventions for care-experienced young people. Crosbie will use the evidence to encourage statutory bodies and commissioning organisations make trauma-focused therapeutic riding interventions more widely available.
We do care! Listening to care-experienced children for change, Canada & Iceland
Child protection social worker Natalie Eastwood’s work to deliver a participation programme for children in care brought up concerns that young people’s views in England are often overlooked by local authorities. She plans to learn from international colleagues how best to use children’s voices to improve the care they receive as well as create a tool for practitioners to use child-centred techniques.
Collaborative approaches to supporting care-experienced students through higher education, Ireland & USA
Esther Fisher plans to research collaborative admissions and student support systems in higher education across the USA and Ireland, with a focus on how a system could be introduced in England to improve university outcomes for care-experienced students. Fisher’s proposal was inspired by her work with students at Oxford University and at the Office for Students, where she learnt about the barriers that care-experienced students face in higher education settings.
How to improve release from custody for children, Belgium, Portugal, Sweden & USA
Eleanor Hinchcliffe will visit facilities and projects that look after children in the criminal justice system, including alternatives to custody to learn how evidence-based practice is used to support children leaving settings. The mental health worker, with experience of England’s youth custody system will also learn how these approaches may best be adapted to meet local needs in the UK.
Improving decision-making in care proceedings, USA
“There is evidence that decision-making in England is inconsistent, lacks transparency and is rarely informed by children themselves”, says children’s social care policy expert Dan Martin. He will travel to New York and Washington DC where recent changes to decision making in the jurisdictions now support greater inclusion of children’s voices. Martin will look at the approaches taken by local social workers and judges to apply lessons from both states to child protection practice in England and lobby for policy changes.
Improving outcomes for the black care-experienced community, USA
Omar Mohamed is an Asian British social worker, lecturer and researcher with lived experience of the children’s social care system from birth to the age of 16. Having taken part in youth advisory groups for research projects due to his own experience, Mohamed hopes to continue this work throughout his fellowship with the black care-experienced community in America.
Kinship care: connecting and developing ecosystems of support, USA
Chief executive of charity Kinship Lucy Peake will examine how the USA’s kinship navigator programs place kinship care experts in local areas to provide a supportive “one-stop shop” for new carers. Peake, who has led Kinship since 2015, hopes to use her findings to implement learning through Kinship and partners in future.
Reimagining out of home care: international models of foster care, Canada & Nigeria
Niketa Sanderson-Gillard, chief executive of fostering social enterprise Why Care, is working on an independent review of foster care in Britain after witnessing adverse effects on children, such as frequent relocations and poor matching. Through her fellowship, Sanderson-Gillard will examine the selection and support of foster carers internationally, identifying best practices that can be integrated into the British system to address the national crisis in foster care.
System transformation for care leavers with severe mental illness, Australia, Canada, USA
Youth mental health researcher ZeZe Sohowan plans to empower young people, clinicians and policymakers to revolutionise support for care leavers with psychosis. Sohowan will visit psychosis research and treatment centres to inform UK policy recommendations.
Secure base not care-cliff: Why attachment matters, Australia & USA
Psychological and occupational therapist Cat Taylor will focus her fellowship on improving psychological support for care-experienced people. Based on the experiences of people in Australia and the USA, she plans to develop a training programme for care-experienced people and professionals working in the field, with a focus on attachment and developmental trauma.
About the Churchill Fellowship
The Churchill Fellowship is a national network of 3,800 inspiring individuals whose mission is to find the world’s best solutions for the UK’s current challenges.
Up to 150 Churchill Fellows are funded each year to visit the world’s leading practitioners and projects on a topic of their choice – from social policy to healthcare to education and more – and bring back new ideas for their communities and sectors across the UK.
Any UK adult citizen can apply, regardless of qualifications, background or age. Fellows are chosen for their potential as change-makers, not their past track record or status.
Find out about fellows and their ideas at www.churchillfellowship.org
