The study focused on long-term social work and child protection practice and the core research questions were:

• How do social workers establish and sustain long term relationships with children and parents in child protection cases?   
• What is the influence of organisational cultures, office designs and forms of staff support and supervision on social work and relationships with service users?

Professor Harry Ferguson - Principal Investigator
Harry joined the University of Birmingham in 2017 as Professor of Social Work. He took up his first lectureship in 1990 and has held professorial posts since 2000. He has taught and researched widely in the areas of social work and child protection, domestic abuse, fatherhood, masculinities and men's lives, mobile research methods, ethnography, and the social science of social work.​

Dr Jadwiga Leigh - Co-Investigator
Jadwiga is a Lecturer of Social Work in the Department of Sociological Studies at the University of Sheffield. In 2005 she qualified as a social worker and has since worked in both statutory and voluntary child and family settings up until 2013. In 2010 Jadwiga began her PhD, which focused on professional identity and child protection culture both here in the UK and abroad in Belgium. The method she used was that of a comparative ethnography which included visual methodology.

Dr Tarsem Singh Cooner - Co-Investigator
Tarsem is a Senior Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Birmingham. Before joining the University Tarsem was a Senior Social Work Practitioner and Accredited Practice Teacher working in crisis intervention and Children and Families teams. In 2014 Tarsem created a mobile phone app to help social workers explore how to navigate the ethical issues of using social media in social work. He is currently developing 360-degree immersive social work child protection apps.

Associate Professor Liz Beddoe - Co-Investigator
Liz works for University of Auckland. ​Liz has long-standing interests in critical perspectives on social work education, professional supervision in health and social care, the sociology of professions, the professionalization project of social work, and media framing of social issues and professions. Liz is currently involved in several research projects: an ethnography of child protection social work in England; a public perceptions project; a study of migrant professionals and an Ako Aotearoa National Project Fund study 'Enhancing readiness to practise of newly-qualified social workers in New Zealand'.

Dr Lisa Warwick - Research Fellow
​Lisa now works at the University of Nottingham as an Assistant Professor of Social Work. Lisa is interested in residential child care, young people, the use of touch in child care practice and social work with children and families. She currently researches child protection practice in the UK. 

Dr Tom Disney - Research Fellow
Tom now works for Northumbria University as a Senior Lecturer in Childhood Studies. Tom is a Human Geographer with interests around institutional interventions into the lives of families and young people. His previous research has included exploring the everyday experience of orphanages in Russia, and family visits to prison in the UK context. He currently researches child protection practice in the UK.

Based on analysis of the ethnographic data collected during the 15 months of fieldwork, a set of 360 degree sceneries were created, using actors to recreate typical scenes in a variety of typical settings to convey what the long-term research suggests can either help or hinder good child protection processes. These apps have being released free to download on all major app stores and are most effective when used in conjunction with VR viewers such a Google Cardboard.