Aoife O’Higgins is the Director of Research at What Works for Children’s Social Care (WWCSC). She leads the centre’s research portfolio, focusing on high quality evaluations of new and existing social interventions that seek to improve the outcomes of children with a social worker. This research is driven by excellence in design and methods, as well as by the stories and experiences of those who receive and deliver social work interventions, including care experienced children and adults, foster and kinship carers, residential care workers, teachers and social workers.
Before joining WWCSC, Aoife was a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, and before that at the Rees Centre, University of Oxford. Her research focussed on identifying the risk and protective factors for poor educational and psychological outcomes for children with a social worker, in order to inform the development of evidence based social interventions. Aoife has also worked with children and young people in and on the edge of care for nearly 10 years.
Aoife holds an MSc Evidence Based Social Interventions from the Department of Social Policy and Interventions and a DPhil in Education from the Department of Education, University of Oxford.
