
Dr Kat Deerfield
Senior research lead
research@socialcare.walesI support the work of the research team. Two of my biggest responsibilities are managing the research coordinators and editing the evidence summaries. Our team researches topics in social care that people have said they want to learn more about. We turn this work into content for the Insight Collective website.
Before I joined Social Care Wales, I was a freelance editor. I’ve previously worked in support roles in communications and in research roles in the third sector and academia. I worked for the Children’s Social Care Research and Development Centre (CASCADE) at Cardiff University for five years, first as a project administrator and then as a research associate.

Dr Grace Krause
Research coordinator
research@socialcare.wales
Dr Flossie Caerwynt
Research coordinator
research@socialcare.walesAs a research coordinator, my job is to make academic research engaging and accessible for people working in social care. I do this by writing evidence summaries, which convey the key principles of research into different topics relevant to social care.
Before starting with Social Care Wales, I spent several years working as an academic researcher for the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research and Data’s Civil Society Research Centre. In that role I worked on several projects, primarily focusing on political polarisation and environmental activism. Through this I developed experience working with communities and activist groups to conduct in-depth research into sensitive topics in the UK and abroad. My research interests are wide-ranging, but focus on community, identity and lifestyles through time.

Beti Thomas
Research coordinator
research@socialcare.walesMy main role as a research coordinator is to write evidence summaries, which collate social care research and make it accessible to people who work in a social care setting.
My research focuses particularly on the context of identity and its impact on social care work/support. I have a master’s degree in international relations and I’m in the final stages of my PhD in sociology.
My previous research addressed the role of anti-racist activism in Wales, for which I was awarded ‘Most Outstanding Postgraduate Researcher’ at Liverpool John Moores University. I am also a fluent Welsh speaker.