Salary: £37,174 - £45,413 pro rata
FTE: 0.5 (17.5 hours/week)
Term: Fixed Term (30 Months)
Closing Date: 20 August 2025
The Department of Social Work and Social Policy in partnership with the Centre for Excellence for Children’s Care and Protection (CELCIS) is seeking a Research and Knowledge Mobilisation Associate to inform and support change around the practice of physical restraint in residential child care in Scotland.
The postholder will be supervised by Dr Laura Steckley and will work alongside colleagues in CELCIS’ Improving Care Experiences Team and the Scottish Physical Restraint Action Group (SPRAG). The postholder will be located at the University of Strathclyde, and data collection (and potentially some other activities) will involve in-person site visits at residential child care services across Scotland.
Under the supervision of Dr Laura Steckley, the postholder will carry out a project which combines research, knowledge mobilisation and co-productive approaches to ascertain a clearer picture of restraint practices across residential child care in Scotland; to explore services’ successes with restraint reduction and related developments; and to explicate and disseminate learning from successful approaches across the sector. The role will involve collaborating with members of the project team and SPRAG to design and carry out data collection, mobilising sector and academic knowledge to enable rigour in the research process, and co-production to activate related learning in the sector – all towards SPRAG’s ambition of making coercive forms of holding less or even unnecessary and, when children are restrained, ensuring it is carried out relationally and with care. Put simply, the postholder will support Scotland’s efforts to hold differently.
Formal interviews for this post will be held on 04/09/2025. A second, in-person interview will be offered to short-listed candidates from the first interview. The date for this second interview is to be confirmed.
Informal enquiries about the post can be directed to Laura Steckley, Reader, (Laura.L.Steckley@strath.ac.uk).
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