Child protection, particularly children in the care of the state; educational outcomes for care leavers; safeguarding in schools; child protection in emergency contexts.

Children's rights, including adolescent autonomy rights; implementation of the UNCRC.

Ethical issues in research involving children and young people. 

Jenny practised as a Family Law barrister for over a decade, specialising in child protection, and was a founder member of Coram Chambers in Temple, London. She moved to King’s in 2005, where she is Programme Director for the MA Child Studies and MA International Child Studies. Her academic interests are at the intersection of children’s rights and child protection. ​ Jenny was an academic adviser (Education and Family) for the NGO Alternative Civil Society Report submitted to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in July 2015 in response to the UK Government’s report on implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. She is a member of the Children’s Rights Judgements Project, a collaboration by international children’s rights academics funded by the AHRC which is concerned with rewriting renowned legal judgements from a children’s rights perspective (to be published by Hart in 2016).

She is a member of the Board of Trustees of the British Association for the Study and Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (BASPCAN). Her forthcoming book, ‘Supporting Care Leavers' Educational Transitions’, considers provision for children ageing out of state care in Western nations and is due to be published by Routledge in 2017. 

Jenny has recently been awarded a British Academy/Leverhulme small grant for research on child protection arrangements in fragile African nations. She is a PLuS Alliance fellow 2016-17.