Project areas

We broadly have six project areas, detailed below.

Crime and reducing re-offending

We have a large portfolio of work in the areas of: crime and disorder; prisons; anti-social behaviour; and reducing re-offending. This has included

Children, families and parenting

We have worked on a series of parenting and family support initiatives aimed at vulnerable groups as well as family support targeted at the general population. Our work in this area includes research in:

Hard to reach and hidden populations

We have been commissioned on several occasions to carry out work with hard to reach or hidden populations. These are groups which often are either difficult to research or those whose voices have previously gone unheard. Such groups include sex workers, migrant workers, Islamic faith groups and people with mental health problems, learning difficulties and physical disabilities. There are other, less hard to reach but nonetheless still considered difficult to research, which we are often asked to consult with, such as offenders and their families, young people at-risk of exclusion, families from deprived neighbourhoods and drug and alcohol misusers.

Women’s services

We have developed significant expertise in research, evaluation and development work for services specifically designed for women. These include services for female offenders, victims/survivors of domestic violence, health services (particularly mental health) and women involved in prostitution.

Disabilities research and evaluation

We have been researching issues relating to disability for a number of years. This has included consultation and research with a range of disabled groups, including mental health survivors. We have undertaken considerable work with parents with learning difficulties in Newcastle. We are currently developing user controlled research concerning the indigenous care and self management approaches of people with neurological conditions, in partnership with Northumbria University and Newcastle Hospitals.

Other work

We have done many other diverse research tasks. We have a portfolio of work in the arts, particularly participatory arts, arts as a diversionary activity for young people at risk of offending and arts for regeneration. We have carried out much editorial and writing work with a particular emphasis on easy to read and plain English texts and we have completed a series of projects ineducation and learning. We are frequently asked to conduct impact assessments on a variety of projects. Our specialism is our research methodology which allows us to cover a variety of subject areas. A full list of our projects including the impact assessments is presented in the full project list. Please use the category titles in the left column to browse completed projects.

You can search through our projects using the search box in the top right.

CLIENT FEEDBACK

"Barefoot did a fantatsic job of our evaluation. In particular, their approach to working with our service users was very impressive. The evaluation has answered many of our questions, but also asked us more, which gives us a great opportunity for the future."

Jayne Butler, Manager, The Comfrey Project

"As an organisation we felt that Barefoot did an excellent job of listening and understanding the needs of our review... We were thrilled with the final report; as well as being a very good read, the presentation and quality was excellent."

Cath Carnaby, Manager, Women's Health Advice Centre


"I am pleased with the honesty and thoroughness with which he (Christopher) dealt with the project. Thanks to the evaluation we now have a number of questions answered and a clear way forward."

Maureen Pearson, Area manager North East, Parentline Plus