What happens after leaving residential childcare? Research into young people’s experiences and outcomes post-placement at the Mulberry Bush School.

This scoping project will plan the mixed methods design for our pilot study of young people’s lived experiences and outcomes after leaving residential care at the Mulberry Bush. It will include online consultative workshops with key stakeholders to strengthen the quality of the design and methodology by drawing on the views of a range of experts invited to dialogue with each other in roundtable formats.

Stakeholders will include experts by experience, academics with specialisms in researching therapeutic residential care, specialist residential care providers, representatives from bodies contributing to policymaking in the English children’s social care system. A face to face half day workshop with ex Mulberry Bush pupils will ensure the views of the organisation’s residential care experienced young people and adults are foregrounded. We will recruit an Advisory Group and two co-researchers from this community, who will co-design the pilot study. A consultant will be appointed to work on the pilot questionnaire.