Biography
Louise is an Assistant Professor in Social Policy in the School of Social Work and Social Policy at Trinity College Dublin. She holds a PhD in Social Policy from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), where she was awarded an LSE PhD Scholarship to undertake her research. Louise also holds a Full Post-Graduate Certificate in Higher Education Teaching (PGCHE) from the LSE, an MSc in Applied Social Research from Trinity College Dublin and a BA (International) in Political Science and History from University College Dublin (UCD). Immediately prior to joining Trinity College Louise worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Division of Health and Social Care, King's College London, and prior to entering academia she worked as a research consultant, delivering numerous reports for government and NGO clients in Ireland and the UK. Louise is Director of the MSc Applied Social Research. She teaches across the following courses: MSc Applied Social Research, BA Joint Honours Social Policy, BA Social Studies, PGDip Social Policy and Practice, PGDip Child Protection and Welfare and the Masters in Social Work. Louise"s research interests include hearing and representing children"s voices, child contact, inspection of child and family services and policy and practice implementation and evaluation. Louise is also expert in systems approaches and realist evaluation. She uses these frameworks to investigate important questions around policy and practice implementation, including why reforms introduced are not having the intended results or why results are patchy.
Louise welcomes PhD applications in the following areas of child protection and welfare and health systems policy: policy or practice implementation, inter-professional working, regulation of services including, audit/inspection of services and performance measurement and management. I have a particular interest in studies adopting complexity theory, a systems approach or realist evaluation/synthesis. Children's experiences/voices in child protection and welfare services; child contact, Signs of Safety.
Publications and Further Research Outputs
Peer-Reviewed Publications
Liz Farsaci, Padraic Fleming, Louise Caffrey, Sara Van Belle, Catherine O'Donoghue, Arianna Almirall Sanchez, David Mockler, Steve Thomas, Barriers and facilitators to international Universal Health Coverage reforms: A realist review, International Journal of Health Policy and Management, 2025
Flynn, S.,Caffrey, L.,Antosik-Parsons, K.,Whiting, S., Byrne, J. and Conlon, C., New-Materialist Bricolage: Presenting an Ontological Position for Qualitative Internet-Based Research, International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 28, (2), 2025, p179 - 192
Caffrey, L., Flynn, S., Quinn, N., Tobin, S. & Holt, S., The Focus and Methodology of Inspection in Ireland: a documentary analysis of Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) child protection and welfare services inspection reports, November, 2025
Caffrey, L., Tobin, S., Flynn, S., Holt, S., Houston, S., Petautschnig Arancibia, C. & Sheaf, G., The Intended and Unintended Effects of Inspection on Child and Family Social Work Services: A Rapid Evidence Review of the International Literature, Human Service Organizations: Management, Leadership & Governance, 2025
Gregory S, Caffrey L, Daly D, Sheaf G., How woman-centred care is experienced and understood in maternity services by women and professionals: A rapid review, Scandinavian Journal of Caring Sciences, 2025
De Clercq, L., Meulewaeter, F., Rowaert, S., Decoene, S., Caffrey, L., Caslor, M., Vandevelde, S., & Vanderplasschen, W., Families' perspectives on the impact of signs of safety in child protection services through the lens of self-determination theory, Children and Youth Services Review, 2025
Gilligan, R., Holt, S., Brady, E., Caffrey, L., Safety and Beyond: What are children's priorities for their participation in the child protection and welfare process?, Child Abuse and Neglect, 2025, p11
Flynn, S.,Lakkshme Sundaresan, S., and Caffrey, L., Outcomes Measurement in Social Care: Insights from Current Evidence, Journal of Social Care, 4, 2024, pArticle 2-
Flynn, S., Lakkshme Sundaresan, S., Caffrey, L.,Spratt, T. and Holt, S., Towards Better Outcomes for Children and Families: Evaluation of the Implementation of an Outcomes Framework, 2024, p1 - 64, https://doi.org/10.25546/11021
Flynn, S., Lakkshme Sundaresan, S., Caffrey, L., Putting Outcomes into Practice: The Implementation of a Framework of Outcome Measures within a Child and Family Service, The British Journal of Social Work, 2024, p1 - 18
Caffrey, L., Brady, E., Keegan, O., Dunne, S., Sheaf, G., Holt, S., & Gilligan, R., Children's Experiences of Signs of Safety: A Scoping Review, Children and Youth Services Review, 2024
Gregory, S., Caffrey, L., Daly, D., "It could not have been more different." Comparing experiences of hospital-based birth and homebirth in Ireland: A mixed-methods survey, Women and Birth, 2023
Caffrey, L, Browne, F. , The Challenge of Implementation in Complex, Adaptive Child Welfare Systems: A Realist Synthesis of Signs of Safety, Children and Youth Services Review, 2023
Stephanie Holt, Robbie Gilligan, Louise Caffrey & Eavan Brady, Through the Eyes of the Child: A Study of Tusla Child Protection and Welfare Intervention, 2023
Caffrey, Louise, Browne, Freda , Understanding the social worker-family relationship through Self Determination Theory: A Realist Synthesis of Signs of Safety, Child & Family Social Work, 27, 2022, p513 - 525
Padraic Fleming, Louise Caffrey, Sara Van Belle, Sarah Barry, Sara Burke, Jacki Conway, Rikke Siersbaek, David Mockler, Stephen Thomas, How International Health System Austerity Responses to the 2008 Financial Crisis Impacted Health System and Workforce Resilience " A Realist Review, International Journal of Health Policy and Management, 12, 2022
Fleming, P., Caffrey, L., Van Belle, S., Barry, S., Conway, J., Sierbaek, R., Mockler, D., & Thomas, S., How International Health System Austerity Responses to the 2008 Financial Crisis Impacted Health System and Workforce Resilience: A Realist Review, International Journal of Health Policy and Management, 2022
Elaine McKimmons, Louise Caffrey, Discourse and Power in Ireland's Repeal the 8th Movement , Interface, 2021
Padraic Fleming, Louise Caffrey, David Mockler, Steve Thomas, 'A realist review to determine how health system austerity responses to the 2008 financial crisis impacted health system resilience for subsequent shocks - why, when, for whom and under what circumstances', 2021, -
How do we Know if Signs of Safety is Improving Children's Safety and Well Being? in, editor(s)Andrew Turnell, Terry Murphy , Signs of Safety: Comprehensive Briefing Paper , East Perth, Elia , 2021, pp10 - 22, [Louise Caffrey, Mike Caslor, Eileen Munro]
O'Reilly, C., Caffrey, L. & Jagoe, C., Disability data collection in a complex humanitarian organisation: Lessons from a realist evaluation, International Journal of Environmental Research & Public Health, 2021
Caffrey, Louise, Book Review: Errors and Mistakes in Child Protection: International Discourses, Approaches and Strategies by Kay Biesel, Judith Masson, Nigel Parton and Tarja Poso, Critical Social Policy , 42, (2), 2021
Caffrey, Louise, How everyone's business can become no one's business: a systems study of interprofessional referral to child contact centres , Journal of Children & Youth Services Review , 109, 2020
Louise Caffrey, We're dragging our heels but there is enough evidence to support making facemasks mandatory, 2020, -
Louise Caffrey, Evaluating Signs of Safety in Ireland: How to best evaluate a whole-systems, nationwide, complex intervention in a complex system? , Evidence Amalgamation, University College Cork, 10/05/2019, 2019
Caffrey, Louise, Ferlie, Ewan, McKevitt, Christopher, The strange resilience of new public management: the case of medical research in the UK's national health service, Public Management Review, 2018, p1-22
Weinrot, M., Caffrey, L., McKevitt, C., Patient-initiated recruitment for clinical research: evaluation of an out-patient letter research statement, Health Expectations, 2017
Caffrey, L & Munro, E, A Systems Approach to Policy Evaluation, Evaluation, 23, (4), 2017
Love, S., Brown, S., Weir ,C., Harbron, C., Yap, C., Gaschler-Markefski, B., Matcham, J., Caffrey, L., McKevitt, C., Clive, S., Craddock, C., Spicer, J., & Cornelius, V., Embracing model-based designs for dose-finding trials, British Journal of Cancer, 2017, p332 - 339
Caffrey, L., Wyatt, D., Fudge, N., Mattingley, H., Williamson, C. & McKevitt, C. , Gender Equity Programmes in Academic Medicine: a realist evaluation approach to Athena SWAN processes, BMJ OPEN, 6, (9), 2016
Caffrey, L. (2016) , The BMJ's stance on qualitative research is epistemologically naïve, BMJ, 352, 2016
Caffrey, L., McKevitt, C., & Wolfe, C. , Embedding Research in Health Systems: lessons from complexity theory, Health Research Policy and Systems, 14, (54), 2016
Adams, M., Caffrey. L. & McKevitt, C. , Barriers and opportunities for enhancing patient recruitment and retention in clinical research: findings from an interview study in an NHS academic health science centre, Health Research Policy and Systems, 13, (8), 2015
Caffrey, L. , The Importance of Perceived Organisational Goals: A Systems Thinking Approach to Understanding Child Safeguarding in the Context of Domestic Abuse, Child Abuse Review, 2015
Caffrey, L. , Hearing the 'Voice' of the Child? The role of child contact centres in the family justice system, Child and Family Law Quarterly , 25, (4), 2013
Murphy, C & Caffrey, L. , Supporting Child Contact: the need for child contact centres in Ireland, Dublin, One Family/Family Support Agency, 2009
Murphy, C., Keilthy, P. & Murphy, C. , Lone parents and employment: what are the real issues?, Dublin, One Family/Combat Poverty Agency, 2008
Non-Peer-Reviewed Publications
Stephanie Holt, Robbie Gilligan, Louise Caffrey & Eavan Brady, Through the Eyes of the Child: A Study of Tusla Child Protection and Welfare Intervention - A Research Briefing, Children and Youth Services Review, 2023, -
Conlon, C., Antosik-Parsons, K., Flynn, S., Caffrey, L., Byrne, J. and Whiting, S., Lessons from Pivoting to Online Interviewing: Ethical and Technical Considerations for Qualitative Researchers following the COVID-19 Pandemic, Social Sciences Research Network, 2023
Research Expertise
Description
Dr Caffrey's research focuses on implementation science and workforce issues in human service organisations, specifically, child protection systems and health systems. Louise's research spans several strands: 1) Regulation of services - particularly audit, inspection and performance measurement and management of services. This theme explores overarching issues of system safety, inter-professional working and intended and unintended effects of regulation. 2) Service users' perspectives and experiences of services - particularly children and patients. 3) The challenges of implementing public policy. Louise's research has sought to better understand, firstly why implementing policy/practice change is so challenging and, secondly, how we can better evaluate public initiatives and so that evaluation findings are more useful for policy makers. Louise specialises in understanding public sector organisations as Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) and using Systems and Realist Evaluation approaches. For example, Louise's research studies the implementation of practice frameworks like Signs of Safety (Ireland's national practice framework for child protection social work), change initiatives like Athena SWAN (a gender equity initiative for universities) and policy goals, for example, accountability and improvement of services via inspection, creation of Health Research Systems, safety in child contact centres and welfare-to-work policy for lone parents. Louise welcomes applications from PhD students in the following areas: 1) Regulation - inspection, audit and performance measurement/management of services; 2) Hearing children's perspectives and experiences of practice initiatives, change initiatives and public policy that aim to protect them; 3) Implementation of practice frameworks, change initiatives and public policy in child protection and health systems. 4) Research on Signs of Safety, Athena SWAN and HIQA inspection. 5) Use of complexity theory, systems approaches or Realist Evaluation/SynthesisProjects
- Title
- The Focus and Methodology of Inspection in Ireland: a documentary analysis of Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) child protection and welfare services inspection reports
- Summary
- Role: PI
- Funding Agency
- Department of Children Equality Disability Integration and Youth
- Date From
- 2024
- Date To
- 2025
- Title
- A rapid review of the international evidence on the focus and effects of inspection of child and family services
- Summary
- Role: PI
- Funding Agency
- Department of Children Equality Disability Integration and Youth
- Date From
- 2023
- Date To
- 2024
- Title
- Children's experiences of child protection and welfare services in Tusla Child and Family Agency
- Summary
- A qualitive study exploring children's experiences of the child protection and welfare services in Ireland. A collaboration in the School of Social Work & Social Policy, led by Prof. Stephanie Holt. Role: funded co-investigator
- Funding Agency
- Tusla Child & Family Agency
- Date From
- 2022
- Date To
- 2023
- Title
- Children's Experiences of Signs of Safety: a scoping review
- Summary
- A systematic scoping review to identify and synthesise the international literature on children's self-reported experiences of the popular child protection social work practice framework, Signs of Safety. Role: PI
- Title
- RESTORE (Towards Dynamic Resilience in Health System Performance and Reform )
- Summary
- The goal of the research is to support the effective and thorough implementation of the Sláintecare reform programme. The research will examine key challenges facing the progress of the reform in the light of health system shocks and burdens on staff. It will highlight strategies to facilitate success. The award is a HRB Senior Leader Award, led by Prof. Steve Thomas, the Edward Kennedy Chair of Health Policy and Management at TCD. Louise is contributing expertise on complex adaptive systems and Realist methodologies. Role: collaborator
- Funding Agency
- Health Research Board
- Title
- Realist Synthesis of Signs of Safety
- Summary
- Signs of Safety is a complex, integrated framework for doing children's services work. It has been implemented in more than 100 jurisdictions worldwide and in 2017 was introduced in Ireland as the national child protection framework. Realist Synthesis complements more established approaches to systematic review, which have been developed and used mainly for simpler interventions like clinical treatments or therapies. Using pre-existing literature, the study aims to provide an explanatory analysis of how and why Signs of Safety might work (or not) in particular contexts or settings. To do so it will use a broad array of literature and wider evidence to identify and test Signs of Safety's underlying causal mechanisms and to explore how those mechanisms might operate under varying conditions. Role: PI
- Funding Agency
- Resolutions Consultancy
- Date From
- 2019
- Date To
- 2021
- Title
- United Nations Module Design: Evaluation methods
- Summary
- We successfully bid to be rostered to design and teach evaluation methods to Untied Nations Secretariat Staff. Designed a module for teaching evaluation methods to UN Secretariat Staff. Role: Co-PI with Dr. Edurne Garcia Iriarte.
- Funding Agency
- United Nations Secretariat
- Title
- Towards Better Outcomes for Children and Families: Evaluation of the Implementation of an Outcomes Framework
- Funding Agency
- Irish Research Council
- Title
- Knowledge for Use (K4U)
- Summary
- Knowledge for Use (K4U) is an innovative, interdisciplinary and multi-institutional ERC-funded research project that aims to show how to put scientific research and common knowledge together to build more decent societies. It is an international collaborative project led by Prof. Nancy Cartwright in Durham University. Louise is contributing to the child welfare case study on Signs of Safety
- Funding Agency
- ERC Horizon 2020
- Date From
- 2015
- Date To
- 2021
Recognition
Representations
Louise is a Fellow of the UK Higher Education Authority. Further information at: https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/individuals/fellowship
Louise is an Associate on the K4U Horizon 2020 Study, led by Prof. Nancy Cartwright at Durham University. K4U's aim is to construct a radically new picture of how to use social science to build better policies. Further information: https://www.dur.ac.uk/k4u/ .
UNICEF Reference Group for Review of Child Protection Systems in Four Countries in South Asia. I am providing guidance to the project on the use of a systems approach.
Awards and Honours
LSE PhD Scholarship
UCD Entrance Scholarship