
Dr Michelle Donnelly
Lecturer
Law
Area of Expertise
- Child and family law
- Family justice
- Childcare and protection
- Youth justice and childhood offending
- Children’s rights, welfare and wellbeing
Prize And Awards
- Celebrate HER (Women+ in Leadership) Award Nomination
- Recipient
- 13/2/2023
- Strathclyde Medal Awards: Team Medal for Strathclyde Cares
- Recipient
- 11/10/2022
- Dedication to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Award (Runner Up)
- Recipient
- 2021
- Teaching Excellence Award Nomination
- Recipient
- 2021
- Teaching Excellence Award Nomination
- Recipient
- 2020
- Teaching Excellence Award Nomination
- Recipient
- 2018
Qualifications
- Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, University of Stirling: November 2019
- Doctor of Laws, University of Strathclyde: May 2017
- Bachelor of Laws, University of Strathclyde: July 2011
Publications
- State intervention in the Scottish children’s hearings system : welfare, proportionality and participation
- Donnelly Michelle
- The State’s Powers to Intervene in Family Life (2024) (2024)
- The relationship between compliance and compulsion, and dynamics of diversion, in child welfare decision making
- Donnelly Michelle
- International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family Vol 37 (2023)
- https://doi.org/10.1093/lawfam/ebac035
- Scottish Youth Justice and the Legacy of Kilbrandon : A Provocation Paper
- Donnelly Michelle
- Reframing Childhood Past and Present Reframing Childhood Past and Present (2020)
- A tripartite analysis of the grounds of referral to children's hearings
- Donnelly Michelle
- Juridical Review Vol 2019, pp. 117-135 (2019)
- Research Briefing : A Study on Children's Reporter Decision-Making
- Donnelly Michelle
- (2018)
- Role of the Safeguarder in the Children's Hearings System
- McDiarmid C, Barry M, Donnelly M, Corson S
- (2017)
Teaching
I have taught across the law curriculum and developed teaching specialisms in child and family law and justice. I hold a postgraduate teaching qualification and have been a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy since 2019. I have been nominated for Teaching Excellence Awards at the Universities of Strathclyde (2018) and Stirling (2020 and 2021) and was the runner-up for the university-wide award for dedication to equality, diversity and inclusion at Stirling in 2021. I currently teach in the following areas: family law, childhood and crime, children's human rights, legal research.
Research Interests
I am interested in how the law responds to children and families, and addresses their rights and interests in legal processes. My work seeks to improve legal responses to children and young people who require compulsory state intervention, whether due to care and protection concerns or offending behaviour. My research mainly focusses on child law and justice, broadly construed. My wider interests relate to family law and justice more generally.
My work is predominately socio-legal in nature. I adopt doctrinal and empirical methodologies and have expertise in qualitative research methods. I am particularly interested in decision-making processes and practices in child welfare interventions. I have conducted research with a diverse range of participants from social workers to safeguarders, panel members to children’s reporters and procurator fiscals to sheriffs.
Professional Activities
- Children on the Move - exploring issues of participation and protection in children's hearings
- Speaker
- 24/3/2023
- International Society of Family Law Caribbean Conference
- Speaker
- 15/12/2022
- Children and Young People's Centre for Justice: Youth Court Evidence Summit
- Participant
- 10/11/2022
- Masterclass: Human Rights, Children's Rights and Climate Change
- Participant
- 22/6/2022
- Designing a New Capacity Building Approach in Response to Human Rights Innovation in Scotland
- Participant
- 10/5/2022
- Institute for Inspiring Children's Futures Special CPD Course on Children's Human Rights
- Invited speaker
- 8/3/2022
Projects
- Challenging Justice Inequalities. Co-producing change with children in conflict with the law
- Vaswani, Nina (Principal Investigator) Donnelly, Michelle (Co-investigator) Porter, Robert Benjamin (Co-investigator) Taylor, Yvette (Co-investigator)
- 01-Jan-2024 - 30-Jan-2026
- The Public Interest and the Child’s Best Interests: Jointly-Reported Children in Scotland
- McDiarmid, Claire (Principal Investigator) Donnelly, Michelle (Researcher)
- 01-Jan-2016 - 31-Jan-2018
- The role of Safeguarder in the Children's Hearings System
- McDiarmid, Claire (Principal Investigator) Barry, Monica (Co-investigator) Corson, Stephen (Co-investigator) Donnelly, Michelle (Researcher)
- 07-Jan-2016 - 31-Jan-2017