Our team

Professor Katherine Brickell
Principal Investigator

Katherine is Professor of Urban Studies in the Department of Geography at King’s College London. Since 2017 she has undertaken research (with Mel Nowicki) on homeless families’ experiences of modular-built temporary accommodation (TA) in London and then Dublin. Her latest research, with the Shared Health Foundation in Greater Manchester, examined the interconnections between debt, family homelessness, and TA in England. Their research report The Debt Trap was launched at the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Households in Temporary Accommodation in October 2023. Katherine has two decades of research experience examining gendered dynamics and inequalities of domestic life, and has long-standing expertise of working in partnership with local and international organisations to enhance the real-world impact of her collaborative research.

Katherine leads the Sensory Lives project and is responsible for building dialogue and action on the findings of the project through the playhouse tent and broader policy engagement to enact positive change for families.

Dr Rosalie Warnock
Co-Investigator

Rosalie is a Research Fellow in the Department of Geography at King’s College London. She is a critical social and economic geographer with 8 years’ research experience on everyday neurodiverse family lives, care, austerity welfare reform, and inequality in the UK. Her PhD research (QMUL, awarded 2022) examined how parents and carers of autistic children navigate and access SEND and social security support services in London. You can find out more here. She has worked in a research capacity with marginalised parents and carers across the UK (London, Yorkshire, and online), and as a youth support worker with young autistic people in Oxford. Rosalie is passionate about research methods and ethics and sits on the High-Risk Ethics Committee for the KCL Faculty of Social Sciences and Public Policy.

Rosalie’s role on the Sensory Lives project is to develop ways of working inclusively with neurodivergent children and their families and to translate these lived experiences into calls for participant-led policy change.

Shared Health Foundation
Project Partner

Shared Health Foundation (SHF) is a clinically-led and evidence-based non-profit, passionate about reducing the impact poverty has on health. SHF primarily support homeless families in Greater Manchester. They also campaign for policy change and are Co-secretariat of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Households in Temporary Accommodation (HTA). With the APPG HTA, they are currently leading the SAFE Campaign to place a statutory obligation on local councils to notify a child’s school and GP when a family becomes.

Advisory board members

Agata Ostaszewska, Neurodiversity Participation and Impact Lead, Autistica.

Anna Tarrant, Professor of Sociology, University of Lincoln.

Emily Barker, Research and Learning Officer, 4in10.

Monica Lakhanpaul, Professor of Integrated Community Child Health, UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health.

Rhiannon Hawkins, PhD Student, School of Geographical & Earth Sciences, University of Glasgow.

Stephen Kingdom, Campaign Manager, Disabled Children’s Partnership.

Sam Pratt, Policy and Communications Lead, Shared Health Foundation.