Senior Research Fellow

My research is focused on relationship-based practice in child and family social work. I have conducted projects in six local authorities in England, including being co-located with social work teams as an embedded researcher for over three years. I am committed to supporting the development of social work practice, to help enhance the experiences of families.

I manage and conduct observational social work research, including direct work with children and families and supervision. I also conduct interviews, focus groups and surveys with parents, children and social workers and analyse performance and costing data. I am a member of the IASR Ethics Panel and a reviewer for the Journal of Children’s Services.

Key projects since joining the Tilda Goldberg Centre for Social Work and Social Care (TGC) in 2015 have included:

• Evaluation of Family Safeguarding Hertfordshire (FSH) which brought together children’s social workers with specialists in adult mental health, domestic abuse and substance misuse. The project adopted Motivational Interviewing as a practice model and introduced Group Supervision in the Family Safeguarding teams.
• Partnership with London Borough of Islington to support practice development through co-design of a skills framework, analysis of practice and delivery of practice coaching programme in the children looked after service.
• Evaluation of the implementation of systemic social work practice in Slough Children’s Services Trust. I conducted research as an embedded researcher that included observations of supervision, observations of practice and interviews with families to explore links between supervision, practice and family engagement.

Before joining TGC, I was Director at Listening for Children, a research consultancy, where I designed and developed approaches to evaluation of Children’s Centre services. Research projects included service user consultations, data analysis and researching young children’s wellbeing and involvement using an observational approach. Prior to this, I worked in finance and research at an education publishing company where I developed financial and analytical skills.

Qualifications

• Listening to Children Masters Course in Participatory Research Methods - Centre for Research on Families & Relationships (CRFR), University of Edinburgh, 2010
• Psychology Postgraduate Conversion Diploma – Open University, 2003
• MA Human Science – University of Oxford, 1997

Research Interests

• Relationship-based practice, including the role of empathy in child and family social work
• Approaches to evaluation including user-defined outcomes, multi-agency service-use data and economic costing
• Developing the knowledge base for supervision and direct practice in child and family social work
• Research ethics

Recent Publications

• Lynch, A., Newlands, F., and Forrester, D. (2018) What does empathy sound like in social worker communication? A mixed-methods study of child protection social work practice.Child and Family Social Work. 24(1), 139–147.doi.org/10.1111/cfs.12591
• Bostock, L., Lynch, A., Newlands, F., & Forrester, D (2018) Diffusion theory and multi-disciplinary working in children’s services. Journal of Integrated Care, 26(2): 120-129, doi.org/10.1108/JICA-10-2017-0039
• Wilkins, D., Lynch, A., and Antonopoulou, V. (2018). A golden thread? The relationship between supervision, practice, and family engagement in child and family social work. Child and Family Social Work, (3), p. 494.doi.org/10.1111/cfs.12442
• Forrester, D., Lynch, A., Bostock, L., Newlands, F., Cary, A., Preston, B. (2017) Family Safeguarding Hertfordshire: evaluation report [PDF] London: Department for Education.
• Westlake, D., Lynch, A., Newlands, F., Stabler, L., Antonopoulou, V., Carro, H., Wilkins, W. & Khan, M. (2018) Measuring What Matters: Communication skills for social work with children, young people and their carers Children Looked After. Wave 1 Report. Tilda Goldberg Centre, University of Bedfordshire, Luton.

Conference papers

• Lynch A. and Newlands F. (2018) Overcoming the challenges of researching empathy in social work practice: Working towards a collaborative definition.European Social Work Research Association Conference. Edinburgh. 18-20 April.
• Lynch, A (2018). A golden thread? The relationship between supervision, practice and parental engagement in child and family social work.XV European Scientific Association on Residential & Family Care for Children and Adolescents International Conference Porto 2-5 October.
• Newlands, F., Lynch A., Khan M., and Westlake D. (2018) Social work with children and young people in care: can we define and measure core communication skills?European Scientific Association on Residential & Family Care for Children and Adolescents International Conference, Porto, 2-5 October.
• Bostock L. and Lynch A. (2018) Why are some innovations adopted by staff more readily than others? Diffusion theory and multi-disciplinary working in children’s services. European Social Work Research Association Conference. Edinburgh. 18-20 April.
• Bostock L. and Lynch A. (2018) Evaluation of Family Safeguarding Hertfordshire – development of inter-agency service use indicators.Innovation Programme National Learning Conference. DfE. London. 27 February.
• Bostock, L., Lynch A. and Newlands F. (2018) Public service in private spaces: Researching the quality of social work practice through direct observation.Contemporary Issues and Debates in Social Work Education, Research & Practice Series. Social Care Workforce Research Unit, Kings College. London. 19 June.
• Lynch A. and Newlands F. (2017) Communicating Empathy in Child and Family Social Work. Making Research Count Seminar. London. 5 December.
• Lynch, A, and Newlands, F (2016) It’s not what you say, it’s the way that you say it? The challenge of defining and measuring empathy in social work practice. Joint Social Work Education and Research Conference, Milton Keynes, 13-15 July.
• Lynch, A, Newlands, F, Westlake D and Forrester, D (2016) User Defined Outcomes. Opportunities and challenges of Goal Attainment Scaling as a measure of outcomes in child and family social work. XIV European Scientific Association on Residential & Family Care for Children and Adolescents International Conference, Oviedo, 13-16 September.

E: amy.lynch@beds.ac.uk
T: 07951 050485