Centre Overview

The Rudd Centre is a unique initiative in the UK, directed towards advancing scientific knowledge, practice improvements and policy developments focusing on vulnerable children and families, working with education, social work-social care, medicine, psychological science and education practice specialists and other professionals to set new standards of research-led teaching and training that enhance the life chances of young people.

The primary mission of the Rudd Centre is to advance new knowledge and insights into the psychological, social, individual, educational and community-based processes that underlie positive developmental outcomes for children and young people, with a particular focus on developing evidence-informed practice developments to benefit:

• families
• schools
• teachers
• community health/other professional practitioners
• policy makers
• young people

The Rudd Centre aims to design and implement a new undergraduate, postgraduate and continued professional development interdisciplinary teaching and professional practice training programme that engages multiple academic, practice and policy communities where there is a core interest in improving the life chances of young people.

This new teaching and professional practice training programme will deliver a workforce of the future with research-led knowledge to promote and enhance positive developmental outcomes for children, families and vulnerable others across all ages and life course stages of development.

A research intensive centre

The Rudd Centre is a research-intensive initiative that aims to improve knowledge and understanding of factors that positively and negatively affect child and adolescent development among front-line practitioner groups spanning education, health, social care, policy and other aligned professional practice groups.

Teaching and professional practice training programme

The primary mechanism through which this central objective will be met is through the development of a new interdisciplinary research-led undergraduate and postgraduate teaching and professional practice training programme.

State-of-the-art scientific and practice-based advances

The Rudd Centre draws on state-of-the-art scientific and practice-based advances to inform knowledge of how family, school and community factors influence children’s development, with a core orientation toward improving understanding of how supports may be offered early to those most vulnerable and at-risk, including those in the following contexts:

• family dynamics and young people's development
• adoption
• foster-care
• institutionalisation
• family separation
• domestic adversity
• care system and social care experiences
• disadvantage and inequality

Advancing scientific knowledge, practice improvements and policy developments and engaging collaboration from multiple disciplines

A unique initiative in the UK, the Rudd Centre is directed towards advancing scientific knowledge, practice improvements and policy developments focusing on vulnerable children and families, working with education, social work-social care, medicine, psychological science and education practice specialists and other professionals to set new standards of research-led teaching and training that enhance the life chances of young people.

Engage with the Rudd Centre

We welcome further engagement and opportunity to develop the Rudd Centre in partnership with University, regional, national and international collaborators. Please contact us at:

• Email address: ruddcentre@educ.cam.ac.uk
• Postal address: Rudd Centre, 184 Hills Road, Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB2 8PQ