Professor Lorraine Radford
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Lorraine Radford is Emeritus Professor in Social Policy & Social Work. Her research specialism is the prevention of gender based violence, abuse and sexual exploitation towards women, children and young people. She is a founder member of the Connect Centre for International Research on New Approaches to Prevent Violence and Harm and of the Lancashire Research Institute of Citizenship, Society and Change.
Lorraine Radford retired from the University of Central Lancashire in 2019 and has been appointed Professor Emeritus in the School.
Lorraine's research interests over her career within academia, government and non-governmental organisations include:
- the epidemiological study of the prevalence and impact of violence against women and children;
- the overlapping aspects of different types of violence and abuse;
- domestic violence, children and parenting, particularly challenging mother blaming;
- safe child contact arrangements;
- gender, crime and violence;
- effective prevention and responses to domestic violence and sexual abuse.
She is currently involved in research to inform the work of international programmes to prevent child sexual abuse and exploitation, online and offline.
Beginning work as a researcher and campaigner against domestic violence in the 1980s, Lorraine has over 30 years of experience working with ngos, the community sector and with a range of governmental and professional organisations in the UK and internationally to develop evidence, training, policy and practice to prevent interpersonal violence and abuse. Her earlier research uncovered the prevalence and impact of domestic violence against women through pioneering community based surveys and work with professional associations. Findings were used to develop two of the UK’s first county-wide coordinated multi-agency strategies in response to domestic violence, (in Surrey and West Sussex), part of a growing grass roots national and international roll out that has since become standard policy. Pioneering studies of the impact of domestic violence on children, especially after parents separate, helped to influence a practice sea change in safeguarding children and mothers in social work, health, policing and law. Her research on domestic violence and child contact arrangements was cited as evidence in the leading Court of Appeal decision Re L, V, M & H (Contact: Domestic Violence [2000] 2FLR 334 and influenced several subsequent Practice Directions for the courts on the assessment of child exposure to domestic violence. Her research was also cited in Hansard debates leading up to the introduction of the Adoption and Children Act 2002, s.120 where seeing or overhearing violence to another person in the home was recognised by law as potentially detrimental to children’s welfare. Working with the British Medical Association in 1998, she produced the first evidence review on domestic violence and health care practice for doctors in the UK. In 2004 Lorraine worked as research manager in the UK Department of Health on the Victims of Violence and Abuse Prevention Programme, a cross governmental programme that aimed to use research evidence to develop and improve cross sector working with adult and child victims and perpetrators of sexual and domestic violence. She subsequently joined the children’s charity the NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty against Children) and set up an ambitious research programme to inform policy and practice within the organisation, including ChildLine. This included the first, widely quoted, UK survey of children’s experiences of all forms of violence and interpersonal victimisation, published in 2011. Experience and findings from this National Survey of Childhood Victimisation have been used to inform research ethics guidance on surveys with child victims as well as the design and implementation of many of the world’s violence against children surveys, including that to be used in the UK by the Office of National Statistics. Lorraine has acted as an adviser and consultant to many global and national governmental and non-governmental organisations. She has produced reviews of evidence on preventing child sexual abuse and exploitation to the UK’s Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (2016) and for UNICEF (2015, 2020), on the abuse of children in care for the Scottish Government Inquiry into Child Abuse (2017) and has contributed to the global learning on violence prevention in organisations such as the End Violence Against Children partnership.
External Affiliations and Memberships
- Member of ISPCAN
- Member of ISPCAN Child Protection Data Collection Group
- Affiliate to CPC Learning Network www.cpc.network.org
- Member of End Violence Against Children Knowledge Network
- PhD in Applied Social Studies, University of Bradford, West Yorkshire, 1988
- MA in Sociology and Law, Brunel University London, 1983
- BA Sociology & Economics, 1st Class Hons, City of London Polytech, 1981
- Violence prevention
- Safeguarding children
- Sexual violence & exploitation
Use the links below to view their profiles:
- Connect Centre for International Research on Interpersonal Violence Prevention
- BSA Violence Against Women Study Group
- 2021 Dahlia-19 (Domestic Abuse: Harnessing Learning Internationally under COVID-19), ESRC.
- 2019-21 Independent evaluation of implementation of Lucy Faithful Foundation Programme Ending Child Sexual Abuse in Bulgaria and Brazil, Oak Foundation.
- 2019-20 Review of research evidence on preventing and responding to child sexual abuse and exploitation and production of action framework. UNICEF New York
- 2019 Evidence review on what works to prevent sexual violence against children, Oak Foundation/Together for Girls
- 2018-20 Speak Out Stay Safe Evaluation, Nationwide evaluation of NSPCC school based violence prevention programmes for children aged 5 to 9 years, NSPCC
- 2018 Evidence Review of the intergenerational transmission of Domestic Violence in Childhood and effectiveness of early childhood prevention responses, NSPCC.
- 2017-20 Safe Lives/ Women’s Aid Road Map, nationwide evaluation of new services to prevent and respond to domestic violence, Big Lottery Fund.
- 2017 Scoping methods and measures used in self report prevalence studies of CSA/CSE, Barnardos/Centre of Expertise on Child Sexual Exploitation.
- 2016-17 College of Policing Child Sexual Exploitation knowledge hub, with University of Bedfordshire, Universities of Sussex, Cardiff, Worcester.
- 2016-17 Rapid Evidence Assessment : What can be learnt from other jurisdictions about preventing and responding to child sexual abuse, review for Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, Home Office.
- 2016-17 Review of evidence on the nature and prevalence of child abuse in Scotland, with specific reference to the abuse of children in residential and foster care, Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry
- 2015-17 PAUSE – Evaluation of Hackney Council’s Project to Prevent Repeat Pregnancy and Removal of Babies into Care, with Katie McKraken, OpCit, DfE.
- 2015 Preventing the Intergenerational Transmission of Domestic Violence, with Verwey Jonker Astria Institute, Netherlands, Daphne.
- 2014-19 Step Up - Building the Evidence Base for Early Intervention Responses for Children Living With Domestic Abuse, Early Intervention Foundation What Works Research Initiative, ESRC.
- 2014-15 British Council New Researcher International Links Initiative award with University of Witwatersrand, South Africa.
- 2014-15 Early help for children exposed to domestic violence in Lancashire, Lancashire County Council.
- 2013-15 Developing programme guidance to address sexual exploitation and abuse of children in development and emergency contexts - Desk based consultancy research to produce evidence review and guidance for UNICEF on protecting children and young people from sexual abuse and exploitation.
- 2013-15 PIECES - Investigating national policies to address child violence to identify good practices across the EU, Daphne programme.
- 2013-14 Review of Sexual and Domestic Violence Services in Wales, Welsh Government.
- 2009-12 Who do you turn to? Follow up research with young adult survivors of maltreatment, the Children’s Charity.
- 2008-11 Meeting the needs of children living with domestic violence in London, NSPCC in partnership with Refuge and the City Bridge Trust.
- 2008-11 The Prevalence and Impact of Child Maltreatment and Victimisation in the United Kingdom, funded by British Home Stores, the Children’s Charity and the NSPCC.
- 2006-09 UK mapping of therapeutic services for sexually abused children, Private Equity Foundation.
- 2006-07 Developing public service agreements for safeguarding children, DFES.
- 2006-11 NSPCC Head of Research, responsibilities included developing and implementing a new NSPCC research strategy, applying for research funds, building organisational research capacity, commissioning and developing in house and externally tendered research projects, managing central research team of twelve researchers and additional volunteers, coordinating research activities with two NSPCC supported research centres, with four NSPCC supported university research fellows.
- All the research projects listed were externally funded by research councils, research funding trusts, government departments, charitable and private funding bodies including: Big Lottery Fund, British Council, British Medical Association, Centre of Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse, The City Bridge Trust, College of Policing, Daphne Programme, Department for Education, Department of Health, End Violence against Children, ESRC, Home Office, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Lancashire County Council, Methodist Church, NSPCC, Nuffield Foundation, Oak Foundation, Private Equity Foundation, Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry, Surrey County Council, Sussex County Council, UNICEF, Welsh Government.
- Last 6 years: Radford, L. (2021) Laws to end sexual abuse and exploitation of children,World Health Organisation Training Series, INSPIRE : Seven Strategies for Ending Violence Against Children, Strategy : Implementation and Enforcement of Laws, Geneva, WHO, online 19 January 2021.
- Radford, L. (2021) Evidence and solutions to eliminate child sexual exploitation and abuse, Together to #EndViolence, Solutions Summit Series, online 26 January 2021.
- Radford, L. (2018) ISPCAN congress Symposium, New Responses to Domestic Violence and Abuse, Prague, September.
- Radford, L. (2018) BASPCAN Symposium on Developing Standardised Data Collection tools with Minimum Data Sets for Child Maltreatment at Health Care Sector and Social Care Facilities, with EUROCAN group, April
- Radford, L. (2017) 10th European Public Health Conference, Stockholm, Sweden, Pre Conference Workshop on Child Maltreatment Data, EUROCAN group
- Radford, L. (2016) Invited keynote on multi-agency early help for children living with domestic violence, Children’s Services National Conference, Iceland.
- Radford, L. (2015) Paper Early help for children living with domestic violence, European Domestic Violence Congress, Belfast.
- Radford, L. Sommarin, C. (2015) Guidance on preventing and responding to child sexual abuse and exploitation, Sexual Violence Research Initiative Conference, Stellenbosch Cape Town, South Africa
- Radford, L. (2015) Paper on Early Intervention and Domestic violence at ISPCAN congress, Bucharest Romania
Telephone:01772893415
Email: Email:Professor Lorraine Radford
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