Cait is a research associate in the Sociology Department at Durham University. Cait joined the team in 2024 to work on Everybody's Business, working with McDonald’s UK and Ireland to explore the use of Contextual Safeguarding in hospitality settings. In partnering with local restaurants and safeguarding services, the research team hopes to find new solutions and support sustained change.
Cait is a participatory action researcher; participatory principles guide Cait's research values and practice, ensuring that knowledge is produced with, and impact is driven for, people affected by the subject. Cait supports Durham University's Centre for Social Justice and Community Action (CSJCA) as a participatory research trainer and is also currently working across CSJCA and the Centre for Neurodiversity and Development (CND) to produce and evaluate a training package for doing participatory research with neurodivergent young people.
Cait's background is predominately focussed on working with young people, either through in-person and digital youth work or her doctoral research. Laughing and growing together while touching on difficult topics is what keeps her motivated. Cait's PhD explored the experiences of help-seeking for domestic abuse with young LGBTQ+ people and she took a participatory action research approach to plan, implement and undertake analysis on this project led by young people on what issues they deem important. This resulted in a co-designed zine, a reflective toolkit that has been used to train domestic-abuse practitioners. Cait’s co-researchers are currently working with her to co-author a journal article together.
For a previous research project, Cait worked with an arts-based organisation and school staff members on a participatory evaluation of resources to support children’s disclosures of domestic abuse. Overall, Cait's research interests focus on violence, harm and support for young people; gender and sexualities and the use of participatory methodologies in both research and practice.