Staff profile

I am an Associate Professor (Research) in the management group for the Contextual Safeguarding research programme in the Sociology Department at Durham University. I am a convening member of the Communities and Social Justice research group. I am currently the Principle Investigator of two research projects. The first, ‘Resourcing Safety’ explores the gaps between what young people, families and communities say they need to build safety around adolescents in their peer groups, schools and neighbourhoods and what is offered by the current policy and practice landscape. The second ‘Seeking Safety’ partners with the ‘Breaking the Chains’ project at the Migrant and Refugee Children’s Legal Unit at Islington Law Centre to pilot Contextual Safeguarding approaches with young unaccompanied asylum-seekers. I am the editor of the Contextual Safeguarding Network blog.

 

I have a critical social psychology background. I am interested in how structural inequalities shape young people's experiences of violence and abuse in their communities, and their experience of harm reduction services. In particular I am interested in exploring the politicisation of child welfare issues to authorise oppressive policing, sentencing and immigration reform.

 

My recent publications have included a co-authored account of county lines, racism and state-making in Britain published by the Institute of Race Relations; abolitionist and zemiological analyses of children's social care interventions; and several papers presenting data on the rate, cost and impact of relocation as a response to extra-familial risk in adolescence that have been cited in the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care in England. I am the co-editor of Social Work with Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Migrants: Theories and Skills for Practice.

 

I am a Social Work England registered social worker and a co-founder and trustee at the charity Social Workers Without Borders where I write and oversee pro bono Independent Social Work expert reports in relation to immigration appeals.Follow me on @lauriewroe.bsky.social

• Anti-racism and migrant rights
• Contextual and structural accounts of safety and harm
• Social justice perspectives in social work

Chapter in book

• Manister, M., Wroe, L., & Adams Elias, C. (2023). Identifying and responding to structural and system drivers of extra-familial harm using a Contextual Safeguarding approach. In C. Firmin, & J. Lloyd (Eds.), Contextual Safeguarding: The Next Chapter (30-43). Policy Press. https://doi.org/10.56687/9781447366454-008
• Wroe, L., Lloyd, J., & Manister, M. (2023). From peers and parks to patriarchy and poverty: inequalities in young people’s experiences of extra-familial harm and the child protection system. In C. Firmin, & J. Lloyd (Eds.), Contextual Safeguarding: The Next Chapter (17-29). Policy Press. https://doi.org/10.56687/9781447366454-007
• Wroe, L. E., & Pearce, J. (2022). Young People Negotiating Intra and Extra - Familial Harm and Safety: Social and Holistic Approaches. In D. Holmes (Ed.), Safeguarding Young People: Risk, Rights, Resilience and Relationships. Jessica Kingsley Publishers
• King, L., Ng'andu, B., & Wroe, L. E. (2020). Surmounting the Hostile Environment: Reflections on Social Work Activism Without Borders. In S. McGuirk, & A. Pine (Eds.), Asylum for Sale: Profit and Protest in the Migration Industry. PM Press
• Wroe, L., Ng'andu, B., Doyle, M., & King, L. (2018). Positioning social workers without borders within green social work: Ethical considerations for social work as social justice work. In L. Dominelli (Ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Green Social Work (321-332). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315183213

Edited book

• Wroe, L. E., Larkin, R., & Maglajlic, R. A. (Eds.). (2019). Social work with refugees, asylum seekers and migrants: Theory and skills for practice. Jessica Kingsley Publishers

Journal Article

• Holmes, L., Pinto, V. S., Wroe, L. E., Peace, D., & Firmin, C. (online). ‘Relocating Adolescents’: The Costs of Out-of-Area Placements as a Response to Extra-Familial Risk/Harm. The British Journal of Social Work, https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcae109
• Hunter, D., & Wroe, L. E. (2024). ‘Already doing the work’: social work, abolition and building the future from the present. Critical and Radical Social Work, 12(3), 312–329. https://doi.org/10.1332/204986021x16626426254068
• Wroe, L. E., & Manister, M. (2024). Relationship of trust and surveillance in the first national piloting of Contextual Safeguarding in England and Wales. Critical and Radical Social Work, 12(2), 205-229. https://doi.org/10.1332/20498608y2023d000000014
• Koch, I., Williams, P., & Wroe, L. (2024). ‘County lines’: racism, safeguarding and statecraft in Britain. Race & Class, 65(3), 3-26. https://doi.org/10.1177/03063968231201325
• Lloyd, J., Manister, M., & Wroe, L. (2023). Social Care Responses to Children who Experience Criminal Exploitation and Violence: The Conditions for a Welfare Response. The British Journal of Social Work, 53(8), 3725-3743. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcad145
• Wroe, L. E., Peace, D., & Firmin, C. (2023). ‘Relocating’ Adolescents from Risk beyond the Home: What Do We Learn When We Ask about Safety?. The British Journal of Social Work, 53(5), 2958–2978. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcad077
• Wroe, L. E. (2022). When Helping Hurts: A Zemiological Analysis of a Child Protection Intervention in Adolescence—Implications for a Critical Child Protection Studies. Social Sciences, 11(6), Article 263. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci11060263
• Firmin, C., Wroe, L., & Bernard, D. (2022). Last Resort or Best Interest? Exploring the Risk and Safety Factors That Inform the Rates of Relocation for Young People Abused in Extra-Familial Settings. The British Journal of Social Work, 52(1), 573–592. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcab106
• Dillon, J., Evans, F., & Wroe, L. E. (2021). COVID-19: changing fields of social work practice with children and young people. Critical and Radical Social Work, 9(2), https://doi.org/10.1332/204986021x16109919842882
• Wroe, L. (2021). Young people and “county lines”: a contextual and social account. Journal of Children's Services, 16(1), 39-55. https://doi.org/10.1108/jcs-10-2020-0063
• Wroe, L., & Lloyd, J. (2020). Watching over or working with? Understanding social work innovation in response to extra-familial harm. Social Sciences, 9(4), https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci9040037
• Wroe, L. (2019). Social working without borders: Challenging privatisation and complicity with the hostile environment. Critical and Radical Social Work, 7(2), 251-255. https://doi.org/10.1332/204986019x15623302985278
• Wroe, L. (2018). ‘It really is about telling people who asylum seekers really are, because we are human like anybody else’: Negotiating victimhood in refugee advocacy work. Discourse and Society, 29(3), 324-343. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926517734664