Dr Jan Ewing
Research Fellow
Amory A019
Overview
Jan joined Exeter Law School in 2014 as a Research Associate on the Mapping Paths to Family Justice project, from the University of Kent where she had been the Research Associate on the Mapping Project since 2011. She worked with Anne Barlow as a Research Fellow on the follow-up project, Creating Paths to Family Justice and was then a Research Fellow on the Shackleton Relationships Project where she followed up couples married for 10 years whom she had previously three times over the first four years of marriage to examine what drives thriving marriages and what leads to the erosion of marital satisfaction. She is currently seconded part-time to the relationship support charity, OnePlusOne, as the ESRC IAA funded ‘Healthy Relationships Knowledge Exchange Fellow’, following up the couples 15 years after marriage. She is also a Research Fellow on 'The HeaRT Project' investigating transitions into and out of a range of relationships. She leads on the phase of the project considering experiences of child-inclusive mediation to look at the potential role of the process in promoting mental health and wellbeing benefits for young people following parental separation.Jan is a member of the Family Solutions Group which works to promote a holistic, supportive and humane response to parental separation with safety and children's voices at the centre of decision-making. She was a family law solicitor, including at partnership level, in a career spanning 20 years.
Research
Jan's research interests have focused on children’s rights, particularly in the exercise of those rights when parents settle out of court following separation. She is also interested in understanding what makes intimate relationships flourish over time.
She is currently seconded part time to the relationship charity, OnePlusOne as the ESRC IAA funded ‘Knowledge Exchange Fellow’ where she is following up a sample of married couples first recruited on marriage 15 years ago and interviewed periodically over that period together with a more diverse sample of couples in relationships of at least 20 years duration (same- sex/mixed-sex and married/civil partnered or cohabiting) first interviewed five years ago as part of the Shackleton Relationships Project.
She is also working with Prof Anne Barlow and colleagues in the College of Medicine and Health on the Wellcome Centre funded project, 'Transforming Relationships and Relationship Transitions with and for the Next Generation (The 'HeaRE' and 'HeaRT' Project)'. This is considering the links between mental health in young people and relationship transitions (both their own and those of their parents), with the aim of helping them able to deal well with these and any issues and processes which arise.
Research group links
External impact and engagement
Jan Ewing is an invited member of the Family Solutions Group set up by Sir Stephen Cobb in 2020 to consider what can be done to improve the experience of children and families before an application is made to the family court.
Drawing on the findings of the Shackleton Relationships Project, with Prof Anne Barlow, Jan has written lesson plans on healthy relationships for young people in secondary schools, which The PSHE Association has quality mark approved.
Working in collaboration with The National Youth Advocacy Service (NYAS) and The National Association of Child Contact Centres, Jan and Anne Barlow have written lesson plans on children's rights when parents separate (The Rights Idea?) which The PSHE Association and the Association of Citizenship Teaching have quality mark approved. The lessons draw on the findings of The 'HeaRE' and 'HeaRT' Project. The PSHE Association has also approved similar lessons for use in primary schools, Rosie's Story. The lessons for both primary and secondary schools are being adapted and translated for use in the Curriculum for Wales.
