A partnership with PraxisCollab CIC gives you access to a wealth of experience and knowledge across social research, evaluation, practice, teaching, co-production, and programme development and management. We work closely together on projects, making the most of everyone’s skills and knowledge, and push each other to be our individual and collective best. We’re a growing community of practice, united by strong shared values and a commitment to meaningful, impactful social research and learning partnerships.
Dr Kathryn Hodges
Director
Kathryn is a registered social worker with over 25 years’ experience as a practitioner, leader, educator, and researcher in the social care sector. She is also visiting research fellow at the Centre for Study of Modern Slavery at St. Mary’s University.
Throughout her research and broader work, Kathryn consistently brings light to the complexity and intersections of individuals lived experiences and the impact they have on instigating change. She explores the complexity of help-seeking and the relational aspects of care.
Kathryn also brings her expertise as a performance and development coach working with leaders, practitioners, and teams refine actionable developmental plans.
Her interest areas encompass practice development in statutory and voluntary services, reflective/reflexive practice, practitioner/leaders supervision and support, co-production, system mapping complexity, the things that happen to women, help-seeking and the relational aspects of care-giving, substance use, exploitation, violence against women and girls, and youth voice.
Beck Dabscheck
Director
Beck has over 25 years’ experience in programme development and management, working on children, young people and family programmes in both voluntary and statutory sectors. She originally trained as a psychologist and worked with young people who had survived childhood sexual abuse.
Beck has extensive experience of youth programme mobilisation, implementation of evidence-based programmes and designing/iterating for learning and practice/service improvement. She has led complex innovative multi-site programmes including regional consortia and large-scale social investment funded programmes (centred on children on the edge of care) and managed statutory youth justice services. Beck is also an experienced facilitator and policy writer.
Beck brings strong interpersonal skills and assured programme management expertise to PraxisCollab projects, alongside a nuanced understanding of voluntary sector operations and the complex internal and external partnership landscapes in which they sit.
Her interest areas include youth voice and influence, practice development and improvement in both statutory and voluntary sectors, children and young people in and leaving care, family emotional wellbeing and evidence-based interventions and programmes.
Dr Sarah Burch
Director
Sarah is an experienced academic and research manager with an extensive record of designing, developing, and delivering high quality innovative education and training.
She has held numerous senior roles within higher education, including Director of Research, Head of Department and REF Convenor, where she has been responsible for leading and managing diverse research in health, education, social care and social policy. She has particular expertise in ethics and research integrity, and is a longstanding chair of an ethics panel on sensitive research.
She is also a highly experienced doctoral supervisor and examiner. Her research focuses on well-being and need across the life course, with an emphasis on women’s services and children’s rights. She is experienced in mixed methods research, including a range of qualitative approaches, such as narrative inquiry.
Her work with public, private and third sector organisations addresses priorities, such as building research capacity, participatory and collaborative approaches, and evaluation in complex settings.
Dr Kelly Bracewell
Kelly has a wide range of research experience across multiple large-scale national and international projects. She has worked with policy makers, commissioners, charitable funders and government departments, and has successfully supported the work of a cross-institution Cochrane review. She holds an academic role at the University of Central Lancashire alongside her work as an independent consultant
Kelly has ten years experience and expertise within the voluntary sector, working and volunteering for a DVA organisation. This included working with children, young people, men and women from a wide range of backgrounds with multiple support needs.
Kelly remains actively involved in the DVA sector and makes a conscious effort to develop and maintain links with local networks which include both the statutory and voluntary sectors. She has extensive experience of multi-agency working and advocates for the importance of listening to children and young people’s voices.
Kelly is also a trustee for her local charity, Tender Nursing Care.
Dr Ada Brachou
Ada’s research and practice experience has focused on providing advocacy and support to women impacted by the criminal justice system and survivors of trafficking.
Her PhD explored the complex issue of human trafficking from Albania to the UK, and her ongoing research interests span modern slavery and human trafficking, migration, cultural competency and cultural humility, and reflective practice.
Taking a participatory research approach to underpin much of her work, she is experienced in collaborating closely with individuals to ensure their voices and perspectives are central to the research process.
Though her work with the Bakhita Centre for Research on Slavery, Exploitation, and Abuse she has investigated the importance of education for survivors of modern slavery, and the challenge they face to access and pursue education during their recovery journey, through a co-production project with the alumni of Horizons Summer School.
Her recent project as the co-principal investigator of a UKRI funded project explored the cultural influences and cultural competency in the prevention and protection of survivors of modern slavery and human trafficking.
Dr Kathryn Chard
Kathryn is also an experienced social worker, researcher, and social work academic. Her practice background with commissioning responsibilities for carers’ services informed her doctoral research exploring the impact of personal budgets on carers’ wellbeing.
She is currently a co-principal Investigator of a programme evaluation of services to children and families in Essex.
Kathryn has a particular interest in discourse analysis as a theoretical approach to understanding the policy making process and mixed methods research designs in relation to social work practice. This interest is driven by an ethical stance to improve knowledge equity. Moving away from technical, rational approaches to understanding solutions to problems and more towards a relational approach; where connection and strengthening reflexive capacities become the focus.
Kathryn is actively involved in her local community and has been a Director of a local organisation supporting family carers since 2013. She is also an NIHR Social Work Research mentor, supporting social work/care practitioners to develop their knowledge of the research design process.
Dr. Kim Detjen
Kim is a qualified social worker registered with Social Work England. She continues to work as an Independent Social Worker, alongside teaching roles in higher education.
Throughout her career, Kim has worked with children and families in various settings, including the England child protection system. She has designed and delivered high quality academic and training programmes on a range of topics such as practice education, supporting newly qualified social workers, domestic abuse, reflective supervision, leadership, report writing, emotional resilience and well-being, among others.
In her doctoral research Kim explored the encounters between child protection social workers and women who have been subjected to domestic abuse. Much of her research focuses on gender and violence, child protection, relationship-based practice, emotions in social work, decision making, qualitative research methods and co-production.
Kim is also on the Board of Trustees for Project Lighthouse, and is a member of the British Academy Early Career Researcher Network.
Dr Lyndsey Harris
Lyndsey has extensive qualitative research experience of conducting sensitive interviews. She is committed to co-production in the design of research and passionate about ensuring a reflexive approach is taken at all stages of research design and practice. Her research background is inter-disciplinary with specialisms in domestic abuse, terrorism and political violence, and recently she has developed her interest in feminist and creative methodologies, focusing on cultural victimology.
With wide ranging experience of partnership and stakeholder engagement, Lyndsey is also a member of The Nottinghamshire Office of Police and Crime Commissioner’s Women’s Safety Reference Group; Vice President of the Society for Terrorism Research (STR); Co-Editor in Chief of the journal, Behavioural Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression; and a member of the British Society for Criminology, Victims Network.
Tessa Hovarth
Tessa has over twelve years’ experience as a researcher and campaigner on gender equality and ending violence against women and girls. Her research and evaluation work has centred on the intersections of systemic gender and racial oppression, violence, multiple disadvantage, housing and mental health. She also researches prevention strategies which challenge the gender norms and stereotypes underpinning inequality and violence.
Tessa’s previous work at a research consultancy involved conducting research and evaluation for a broad range of voluntary and statutory sector clients. She is passionate about ensuring that research influences practise and policy.
Tessa is also a trained facilitator and mindfulness teacher, supporting changemakers to enhance their personal and collective resilience and inspiration to act for social change. She has set up and run grassroots campaigns to end sexual exploitation in Leeds and London.
Sarah McCoy
Sarah has worked across the UK social sector, holding senior and strategic roles in a range of charities (YMCA George Williams College, YouthNet, Depaul UK and BookTrust) and as a consultant and trainer (The SROI Network and Charities Evaluation Services). She specialises in working with organisations delivering services with and for young people, and vulnerable groups, and in applied methodologies that work 'in the real world'.
Sarah has particular skill in synthesising complex information into useable frameworks for data collection and analysis. For example, during her time at Depaul UK she worked with over 100 young people and 25 youth work practitioners to create the Youth Homelessness Outcomes Tracker and its underlying framework. She was also responsible for the research behind, and development of, the Danger Zones and Stepping Stones framework, which enables organisations to identify and support young people living in temporary accommodation. In her roles as a consultant, Sarah has developed countless Theories of Change and MEL frameworks, including for Children in Need, Trust for London and Comic Relief grantees as part of programmatic evaluation initiatives.
Sarah is particularly interested in qualitative methodologies and, in particular, how narrative can form the basis of quantitative analyses. Last year, for example, she used a case study approach to estimate the economic impact of a programme designed to ‘resettle’ young offenders.
Dr Carole Murphy
Prior to her academic roles, Carol worked in drug and alcohol services, and this experience informed continues to inform her research. She was instrumental in establishing the Centre for the Study of Modern Slavery at St Mary’s University in 2015 and continues to lead research activities at the Centre.
Carole has published on the performance of identity in recovery from addiction, and on media representations and political discourses about migration, smuggling and human trafficking. Her report, A Game of Chance?: Long-term support for Survivors of Modern Slavery (2018) evaluated the impact of gaps in long-term support for survivors of modern slavery. She is continues to examine barriers to services for people experiencing intersecting support needs.
Dr Sarah Priest
Sarah worked in policy and advocacy roles in the women’s sector, before moving into research and evaluation. She has more than ten years’ experience delivering and managing complex and sensitive projects for Government-sponsored agencies, EU institutions, NGOs, Government departments and research consultancies.
Her evaluation work has centred upon projects supporting disadvantaged and vulnerable groups, particularly women with multiple and complex needs, and children in or on the edge of care systems. As a researcher, Sarah has a particular interest in feminist social movements and their engagement with institutions and policy making.
Sarah Tayleur
Sarah has a Masters in Health and Social Care Management and Policy and has worked in the non-profit and public sector doing research, evaluation and community development. Her work focuses on qualitative participatory research, ethical considerations and co-productive evaluation design and delivery.
Sarah worked at Fulfilling Lives (Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham) where she focused on building relationships with community groups, co-producing developmental evaluative research on their needs and barriers faced, and (re)developing the services and peer-led projects offered accordingly.
Recently Sarah worked with young people in communities funded by Empowering Local, conducting research aimed at strengthening their approach to place-based funding for young people’s support services. She also led a Youth Futures Foundation research project to understand how services can better talk to young people about their identities, and use this demographic data to deliver more equitable services.
Sarah is passionate about building meaningful relationships and fostering connections, to understand the needs, motivations, and perspectives of others. She particularly enjoys working with Experts by Experience and is currently working with Rethink Mental Illness on a young champions co-production evaluation project.