Lorna Stabler

Lorna is an experienced social work researcher based at CASCADE, Cardiff University. Her research area focuses on strengthening families, specifically how families and their networks can be better supported and engaged so that children can remain safely within their communities. She has recently completed a NIHR-funded project which explored the potential of using FGCs as an alternative to Child Protection Conferences, and is currently leading a Nuffield-funded project focusing on special guardianship orders in Wales. 

She is passionate about working in partnership with people with lived experience of social work involvement and those who deliver services within her research practice, and developing best practice around including people with lived experience of social care involvement in research across Wales. She has experience of being a community care worker for people with neurological conditions, and her own experience of having been in foster care, and a family and friends foster carer. She sits on the Children in Wales Independent Review Mechanism supporting decision-making around approval of foster carers. She also helps run a Christmas Day event for care-experienced young people.