Assessing potential inequalities in adolescent outcomes amongst looked after children

Care-experienced children (CEC) have poorer outcomes than other young people, both in childhood and later life. Improving outcomes for CEC is a high priority for the Scottish Government and formed the basis of a recent Independent Care Review, which was critical of the lack of joined up data and poor understanding of the outcomes for CEC with different types of care journey. This PhD project aims to plug both of these gaps by bringing together multiple administrative datasets for children and young people in Scotland.

The studentship will involve conducting longitudinal analysis of a cohort of CEC and a matched group of non-CEC to identify 'care journey typologies' and examine outcomes in adolescence, principally focusing on longer term care, educational and mortality outcomes, but with an ambition to also examine social welfare and criminal justice outcomes. By linking together previously unlinked datasets, this studentship has the potential to better inform policy and inform services working with CEC. It will also feed into a key programme of work within ADR Scotland around improving data on children's lives and outcomes.