New centre for research into fostered and looked after children

The University of Oxford has announced the creation of a new centre to conduct research into how to improve outcomes for foster children and looked after children (in care) so they achieve more and have more fulfilling lives. The new centre called the Oxford University Rees Centre for Research in Fostering and Education is a collaboration between Oxford's Department of Education and the Core Assets Group, a major provider of children's services in the UK that will also financially support the centre. The inaugural professor and new director of the centre, Judy Sebba, previously worked as Director of Research and Knowledge Exchange in the School of Education and Social Work at the University of Sussex. Other newly created posts will include a new senior research fellow and a doctoral studentship at the centre. Researchers at the new centre will look at the factors that influence whether or not children in care perform academically; the role played by foster carers, in particular the emotional attachments they provide for children in care; the motivation and retention of foster carers; the cost benefits of different types of care; and caring agencies' aspirations and expectations of looked after children and foster children. Professor Anne Edwards, Director of the Department of Education at Oxford, said: 'The new centre builds on a depth of research in Oxford's Department of Education on how disadvantaged children and young people are being helped to achieve.