John Devaney

Professor John Devaney (he/him) is the Centenary Chair of Social Work and Head of the School of Social and Political Science. He is a member of the British Association of Social Workers, the Association for Child Protection Professionals and the Association of Professors of Social Work. John’s research focuses mainly on the broad area of family violence, with a particular focus on:

• Child homicide
• Child maltreatment
• Child welfare policy
• Domestic violence
• The impact of adversity in childhood across the lifecourse. 

His current research projects include:

• 2020-2021 The mental health and wellbeing of youth in care and care-leavers: Development of a national collaborative research agenda. Funded by the Medical Research Council.
• 2020-2022 A feasibility study of a prison-based parenting programme (Families Matter). Funded by the Nuffield Foundation.
• 2019-2023 Young people bereaved by domestic homicide: Understanding home, relationships and identity. Funded by the Australian Research Council.
• 2019-2023 Developing the evidence base for innovation in social care for children and families affected by domestic abuse. Funded by the ESRC.
• 2019-2022 Children living with domestic violence – understanding the effects on children’s wellbeing using longitudinal data. Funded by the Nuffield Foundation.
• 2019-2022 Addressing the trauma-related distress of young people in care: A randomised feasibility trial across social-care and mental health services. Funded by the NIHR.

His recent outputs include:

• Skafida, V., Morrison, F., & Devaney, J. (2022). Intimate partner violence and child maltreatment in Scotland–Insights from nationally representative longitudinal survey data. Child Abuse & Neglect, 132, 105784. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2022.105784
• Devaney, J., Bradbury-Jones, C., Macy, R., Øverlien, C. and Holt, S. (Editors) (2021) The Routledge International Handbook of Domestic Violence and Abuse. Routledge, London.
• Skafida, V., Morrison, F. and Devaney, J. (2021) Exploring the prevalence of and risk factors associated with maternal experiences of different types of domestic violence in Scotland using nationally representative data. Journal of Interpersonal Violence. Online First https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260520980392
• Devaney, J. and Martin, E. (2021) ‘Providing a better service for older women experiencing domestic abuse’ in Radford, L., and Thiara, R. (Eds.) Domestic abuse across the lifecourse:  safeguarding and prevention. London, Jessica Kingsley Publishers.