Molly has been working as a research assistant for the Contextual Safeguarding Research Programme since July 2020. She has worked on a variety of projects, including Contextual Safeguarding and Youth Justice, Contextual Safeguarding: The Next Chapter, and The Contextual Safeguarding Academics Network. Her current focus within the team is on the Risk Outside The Home (ROTH) pathway project.
Before joining the Contextual Safeguarding team, Molly worked for The Children’s Society. Prior to this, she completed her MA in Human Rights at University College London. Here, her research focused on the sexual exploitation and abuse of women and children in post-conflict zones perpetrated by UN peacekeepers. Her wider research interests include the role of surveillance and control in social-work responses to extra-familial harm, social policy analysis, carcerality and securitisation, and human rights in practice. She is particularly interested in how safeguarding policy and practice operates in perpetrating systemic and structural harm, and the ethics of intervening into young people’s lives.
Alongside being a member of the Contextual Safeguarding team, since October 2022 Molly has been enrolled in an ESRC-funded PhD in Sociology and Social Policy, exploring whether the values of social work align with the values underpinning current policies around preventing the radicalisation of young people. Her PhD research is system-harm focused, exploring the intersection between safeguarding and counterterrorism and the implications on the social-work profession.