Sarah Blower
Associate Professor (Senior Lecturer) of Child Development and Family Wellbeing
Profile
Biography
Sarah Blower is a Research Psychologist and Associate Professor in the Department of Health Sciences at the University of York. Sarah specialises in the design, implementation and evaluation of interventions to improve the health and wellbeing of infants, children, young people and their families. Sarah has extensive experience working collaboratively with charities, local authorities and other organisations seeking an effective way to prevent or intervene early in difficulties with children’s health and development.
Sarah leads the Family Wellbeing Team, whose research focuses on developing and evaluating interventions and measures designed to reduce inequalities in the health, development and wellbeing of babies, children and young people, and their families. The team works collaboratively with parents, carers and professionals in health, social care and the community.
Sarah is a member of the Early Life and Prevention workstream of the Yorkshire and Humber Applied Research Collaboration (YHARC) and leads the ‘Best Start’ topic. She is also the Evaluation Workstream Lead for the Bradford Better Start Innovation Hub (BSBIH). Sarah previously held posts in the Institute for Effective Education (IEE) and spent a decade as a researcher at Dartington Social Research Unit.
Qualifications
- BSc Psychology (hons) – University of Bath
- PhD – Dept of Social Policy – University of Bath
Sarah is able to supervise PhD projects on a broad range of topics relating to child development and family well-being. Specific areas of interest include infant and child mental health, parenting, assessment and outcome measurement, service or intervention design, implementation and evaluation and projects involving qualitative or mixed methods.
Departmental roles
- Programme Leader for MSc Health Research
- Module lead for Qualitative Health Research
- Member of the DOHS Research Degrees Committee
- Member of the Disability, Long-Term and Chronic Health Conditions steering group
- Member of the DOHS Contract Research Forum
Research
Overview
Sarah's research interests and expertise are in the design, adaptation, implementation and evaluation of complex interventions. She is broadly interested in interventions that address infant and child mental health, including those that work with parents and families, and that have potential to achieve impact at scale. Sarah is also interested in the relationships between interventions and the systems they sit in, co-production, and the development and testing of outcome and implementation measures.
Sarah has led and contributed to a variety of studies drawing on a range of quantitative and qualitative designs and methods including systematic and scoping reviews, randomised controlled trials, quasi-experimental studies, process evaluation, qualitative interviews, focus groups, cognitive interviewing and psychometric studies.
Projects
Current projects
- Supporting Parent-Infant Relationships Equitably (SPIRE): a mixed-methods evaluation of the Start for Life prompts for holding relationships in mind.
- BIBBS ACHIEVE: Addressing Childhood Inequalities through Evidence-Based Early Interventions using Born in Bradford’s Better Start (BiBBS) birth cohort.
- Forest school INterventions for Children’s Health (FINCH). This study aims to assess the feasibility of conducting a randomised controlled study of Forest Schools in primary schools across England, focusing on children within Key Stage 2.
- Evaluation of an intervention to improve infant mental health: Ready to Relate
- Early Life and Prevention (ELP) theme of the Applied Research Collaboration (YHARC). The ELP brings together policy makers, communities and charitable organisations to develop effective and sustainable interventions to improve health, catalysing systems change across the region and beyond. Specific projects include the development of a new self-report measure of parent-infant bonding, a project focusing on inequalities in the disclosure, identification, capture, referral and treatment of perinatal mental health problems.
- Bradford Better Start Innovation Hub (BSBIH). The BSBIH is a Partnership between Better Start Bradford, Born in Bradford and the University of York. The BSBIH conducts novel research and evaluation on early childhood interventions in one of the most multicultural populations in the UK.
Completed projects
- Enhancing social and emotional health in the early years (E-SEE). A multi-disciplinary randomised controlled trial evaluation of the effectiveness and acceptability of a proportionate universal parenting intervention (Incredible Years programmes) for 0-2 year-olds. E-SEE project page
- Evaluation of the Mental Health Navigator Scheme: one of five studies funded through the NIHR ARC National Priority Consortium in Health and Care Inequalities.
- A suite of systematic reviews on the psychometric properties of child, parent and dyadic outcome measures to evaluate parenting programmes for 0-5 year olds. Designed and implemented through the NIHR funded CLAHRC YH Healthy Children, Healthy Families workstream.
- Service design and evaluation partnerships with third sector organisations:
- TLG Early Intervention Programme: Grant from Nesta and the Cabinet Office (via the Centre for Social Action Innovation Fund) to support a Bradford-based charity to develop and implement an evaluation and monitoring framework for a school-based coaching programme.
- ESRC Impact Accelerator fellowship award to work with London-based charity Chance UK, to support the adaptation of a parenting programme for children with behavioural difficulties and the development of a resilience intervention for girls at risk of emotional difficulties.
- Evaluation of the Step Change project. Funded through the DfE Children’s Social Care Innovation Programme, Sarah co-led an outcome, implementation and economic evaluation of a new service for adolescents on the edge of care delivered by Action for Children in three London Boroughs.
Research group(s)
Supervision
Sarah is able to supervise masters dissertations and PhD projects on a broad range of topics relating to child development and family well-being. Specific areas of interest include infant and child mental health, parenting, assessment and outcome measurement, service or intervention design. implementation and evaluation, and projects involving qualitative or mixed methods.
Teaching
Undergraduate
- Contributions to BMid/MMid Midwifery and BSc/MNursing (Child) programmes
Postgraduate
- Programme Leader for MSc Health Research
- Module Lead for Qualitative Health Research
- Dissertation supervisor for Master of Public Health
External activities
Memberships
- Member of International Network for Research on Inequalities in Child Health (INRICH)
- Member of the Society for Reproductive and Infant Psychology (SRIP)
- Member of the EQUAL North network: collaborative research on health inequalities
- Member of the Co-production Network for Wales
- Member of Equal England: Research and Practice Network
- Member of the 0-19 Research Network: Yorkshire & the Humber
