Amrita Bandyopadhyay presented international child welfare findings at the 9th Biennial International Symposium DARE conference in Zurich.
Amrita, a researcher from the Centre for Population Health at Swansea University, shared data from a collaborative project titled “Patterns of service contacts for children who have experienced maltreatment and are known to social services: a Linked Routine Administrative Data Study in Wales, England and Denmark.”
the DARE 2026 Conference in Zurich
The study is a collaborative effort by Dr Tash Kennedy and Professor Sinead Brophy from the Centre for Population Health, Swansea University. Co-authors include Dr Laura Cowley from Swansea University, alongside researchers from the ROCKWOOL Foundation, Stockholm University, Zealand University Hospital, Aarhus University, University College London, and Dijon University Hospital.
Research Background and Methodology
Maltreated children interact with multiple public services before and after social services identify them. This study maps these specific touchpoints to reveal where support systems fail and where early intervention can happen.
The work is part of the European Commission’s Horizon Health 2024 SERENA project, which runs from 2025 to 2029. The research team linked records of children on child protection and children looked after registers in Wales, England (using Growing up in England and ECHILD datasets), and Denmark. They connected these registries to administrative records covering hospital admissions, emergency care, GP visits, school attendance, employment history, and justice system interactions.
The researchers compared these data against a propensity-matched control group of children unknown to social services. The data tracks public service use from two years before initial social service involvement up to ten years afterwards.
Key Preliminary Findings
The project tracks service use across different countries to see if consistent contact patterns can flag high-risk children. Preliminary data from Wales show distinct patterns:
- Emergency Care: Children on the child protection register visit emergency departments more often than the matched general population. This specific spike did not appear in the data for children looked after.
- Adult Outcomes: In adulthood, individuals who were in the children looked after system experience higher rates of unemployment and welfare benefit reliance than both the matched general population and individuals who were on the child protection register.
Mapping these service paths provides data to design earlier, targeted interventions and prevent further harm.