IJPDS International Journal of Population Data Science

Research on parental problems is key to understanding why some children become involved in the children’s social care system, and administrative data provides a helpful way of doing this. However, the ability to carry out this type of research depends on the data available and whether it contains information about parents as well as children. In some countries, the way administrative data is collected makes it relatively easy to link parents and children, but this is not the case everywhere.  In Wales, for example, data are more limited. While it is relatively easy to link children to mothers using birth data, linking to fathers is much more difficult, with implications for the research that can be undertaken.

A new study, published in the International Journal for Population Data Science (IJPDS), has explored the relative benefits of linking different administrative datasets together to identify the parental figures of children who enter local authority care in Wales. Importantly, the research focuses not only on biological parents but also on wider parental figures such as resident stepparents, who may play a significant role in children’s lives and influence their interactions with social care services.

The paper is designed to support researchers planning studies involving parental figures, helping them choose the most appropriate methods for their work.  In addition to birth data used to identify biological mothers, the study explored data on who children lived with prior to entering care, records of children’s involvement with Cafcass Cymru, and the 2011 and 2021 UK Censuses.  Linking this group of families to the 2011 Census was particularly challenging, suggesting families whose children later enter care are less likely than average to complete the Census.  While this may reflect the complex problems many of these families experience, it also has important implications for the use of Census data in children’s social care research.

The study concluded that the choice of datasets should be guided by the research questions being asked. For example, Cafcass Cymru data would be the most useful when studying non-resident parents or children who have received a care order, whereas information household composition prior to care entry may be more appropriate in other contexts. All the methods, however, introduce potential biases, and researchers need to be mindful of these when planning and interpreting research.

Lead author Dr Nell Warner commented:  “There is no doubt that the best thing for research would be if data on children was collected in such a way that we could identify who their parents and other key parental figures are.  However, until this is the case, our paper should provide a useful guide for planning research.”

 

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Dr Nell Warner, Research Associate, CASCADE, Children’s Social Care Research and Development Centre, Cardiff University, UK

Warner, N., Hodges, H. R., Scourfield, J. and Cannings-John, R. (2026) “Identifying the parents of children who enter care: The pros and cons of different data linkage methods using Welsh datasets: Identifying the parents of children who enter care”, International Journal of Population Data Science, 11(1). doi: 10.23889/ijpds.v11i1.3381.