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I am very pleased to bring you the Summer 2022 issue of the School of SSESW newsletter.
This will be my final introduction as my 5-year term of office as Head of School is ending. Over this period, it has been my privilege to lead such a dynamic, socially engaged interdisciplinary School, which through its research and teaching and engagement with professionals and policy makers in national and international settings, continues to have an enormous social impact at home and abroad.
Our work connects the Northern Ireland community with world leading experts and enables us to share with a global audience the recognised excellence in Northern Ireland schools and agencies. In this issue, alongside the many other notable activities and achievements highlighted, I am delighted to be able to feature the School’s success in REF2021; a peer assessment of academic research quality that seeks to ensure the continuation of world-class, socially responsive research in UK Universities. A challenge, which is at the core of all our activities.
As I step down from the role as Head of School it is with an enormous sense of pride in what the School has accomplished and with a strong degree of confidence in its continuing ability to make a social difference!
Professor Carl Bagley PhD FRSA
Head of School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work
School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work (SSESW) research is impacting on societies, economies, health and cultures, from local communities to global populations, as evidenced by the results of the recent Research Excellence Framework (REF). REF is the UK's system for assessing the quality of research in UK higher education institutions.
We are delighted that both Units of Assessment (UoAs) in the School feature in the top 20 of the REF exercise as featured in the Times Higher Education REF2021 subject rankings.
Over 83% of research submitted to REF2021 across two UoAs in the School was judged to be World Leading or Internationally Excellent. We are delighted that our work in Education, Criminology, Social Policy, Sociology and Social Work has been recognised in this important exercise. It is further endorsement of the depth and breadth in quality of our research.
We are proud of the standard and impact of research by every member of staff within the School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work. These results are part of a whole School effort, including our dedicated researchers, our non-research active academic colleagues, professional services and valued external partners. Recognition through REF is only possible through the support of this entire ecosystem. You can read more in our REF success news article.
- How Queen’s shapes worlds through research
- More information on the University’s REF 2021 results
- Ranking tables are available on the Times Higher Education REF2021 pages
Social Work and Co-production, as part of the Northern Ireland Department of Health Reflections series, is an important piece of work that was developed over two years. School of SSESW academic Joe Duffy (Social Work) was one of the co-authors on this publication which supports social workers and social work students in gaining a better understanding of how to improve social work services through co-production with service users.
The publication was co-produced, throughout the pandemic, by a group of people from lived experience, social work and academic backgrounds and was launched in November 2021.
It covers principles and essentials of co-production and contains case study examples from across Northern Ireland, including several developed by School of SSESW staff. One SSESW example highlights the fact that, over the past 15 years, people with lived experience of bereavement, injury and trauma, all of whom are members of WAVE Trauma Centre in Belfast, have been co-producing teaching and tutorials alongside our Social Work academics for students on our Social Work degree course at Queen’s University. This occurs at an early stage of the degree programme, for students in their first year, so that, importantly, they are being introduced to lived, experiential knowledge at the outset of their social work education.
To further embed the important messages of this work, Joe Duffy and co-authors will present a lunchtime seminar on 20 June for the Northern Ireland Social Care Council, entitled Shining a Light on Social Work and Co-Production - A Call to Action.
The publication is available on the Department of Health website at Social Work and Co-production.
Earlier this year, Nichola Booth from our Centre for Behaviour Analysis, in collaboration with NewRed TV and Ulster University, completed a research project entitled ‘Virtual Reality Classroom’ with pupils from St Gerard’s School and Support Services, Belfast. The project design incorporated behavioural principles and teaching strategies into a virtual environment to aid in the teaching of fractions to six autistic teenage boys.
The aim of the project was to assess whether there was a difference in the learning of fractions using traditional teaching methods compared with technology-based methods. The results of the exercise were promising, with all six pupils accelerating their learning with faster and more correct responses recorded. After a follow-up session, which consisted of testing pupils’ learning using traditional paper-based fractions worksheets, all of them had transferred their learning from the virtual world and retained their new learning, as evidenced by scores of greater than 90% on the worksheets. Feedback from the pupils at St Gerard’s suggested that this ‘gamification’ was a fun way to learn, and the individual feedback and reinforcement (in the form of 'flying tokens' and auditory praise) motivated them to keep going. These ‘flying tokens’ were embedded within the Virtual Reality classroom and were obtained by responding correctly and quickly following the instruction from the virtual teacher. These tokens could then be exchanged for a real-life reinforcer (determined by the class teacher) such as time in the sensory room, additional screen time or extra break time.
More Virtual Reality (VR) classrooms are being developed with the same team (Queen’s, NewRed TV and Ulster University) to target further academic skills such as other maths concepts and literacy skills, which will be trialled in the new academic year both in St Gerard’s School and Support Services, Belfast, and other schools across Northern Ireland.
Dirk Schubotz is Professor in Social Policy and is currently Postgraduate Research Director.
As a native of Berlin I first came to Belfast in 1991 with a youth exchange programme as chairperson of a community youth project I set up with young people in Berlin. Two years later, I returned to study at Queen’s University for a year. In the mid and late 1990s, I spent some time back in Belfast, undertaking research on integrated schools for my Master’s and PhD, and eventually moved over to live and work in Belfast in 2000.
I have been fortunate to have the opportunity to retain my interest and passion for young people and my engagement in youth and community work as part of my academic career.
Together with colleagues in ARK – Northern Ireland’s Social Policy Hub - I established the annual Young Life and Times (YLT) survey of 16 year olds and have directed the survey since 2003. It has become one of the core social policy monitoring tools in Northern Ireland, a highly respected and well-used vehicle helping government departments and the voluntary sector to develop and monitor core policies on, for example, good relations and peacebuilding, shared education, children’s and young people’s rights, tackling paramilitarism, mental and sexual health, physical activity, volunteering and, most recently, tackling violence against women.
As a member of our Centre for Children’s Rights, I have long been involved in participatory research with young people and engaged research with youth and community organisations. I am active in the promotion of sexual health services for young people in Northern Ireland and chair Common Youth, Northern Ireland’s leading sexual health charity for young people. I am involved with the Government’s efforts to bring about changes in order to end violence against women and girls.
As Postgraduate Research Director, I look after our approximately 200 doctoral students. I teach Qualitative Research Methods at all levels in the School. At undergraduate level I supervise our third year Social Policy students as they complete a tangible policy research project in collaboration with a voluntary sector organisation. The students love that module as it provides them with employability skills they can draw on.
Social Work student Alexander Bennett was a member of an interdisciplinary team from Schools across Queen’s that was crowned winner of this year’s All-Ireland Interprofessional Healthcare Challenge for Students, an intervarsity competition where students from different disciplines had to work collaboratively to respond to a case study involving Mary, a woman with complex needs admitted to hospital from a nursing home.
Student teams from seven Irish universities submitted a video response of their plan. A panel of judges then decided which university demonstrated expert interdisciplinary collaboration and team working.
Audrey Roulston, convenor for our Social Work in Adult Services module, felt that the Queen’s presentation was underpinned by core professional values and demonstrated knowledge and respect for the roles and responsibilities of different professionals. Having a social worker on the team helped to focus on the psychosocial aspects of Mary's situation, highlighting the importance of working in a person-centred way, empowering and respecting Mary's wishes and rights regarding her care and discharge planning. The team’s presentation demonstrated the gold standard for how discharge planning should be coordinated for all patients, regardless of age or ability, and aligns with the Northern Ireland Social Care Council's Standards of Conduct and Practice (2019) and the Global Definition of Social Work (2014).
Alex commented: ‘It is important to learn more about other disciplines to prepare for multidisciplinary work. The NHS is in crisis and we, as a student team, had a great opportunity to collaborate and to learn from each other about all the health professions, enabling us to best empower and support those who use our services. We had plenty of support from the Schools and our meetings were just like case study work in tutorial. It was excellent meeting other students and I've left the challenge knowing a lot more about the medical perspective on social care.’
Queen’s winning performance can be viewed at Healthcare Challenge for Students.
Our Northern Ireland Centre for Information on Language Teaching (NICILT) supports language teaching and learning in Northern Ireland and is funded by the Department of Education. In 2021/22, NICILT launched a new Ambassadors project, linking final year undergraduate students with Year 10 pupils in non-selective schools. Sixteen Ambassadors visited schools to deliver presentations on the value of languages, followed by four mentoring sessions to encourage ‘on the fence’ pupils to opt-in to GCSE Languages. Pupils who took part in the project reported a positive increase in their attitudes to GCSE Languages. NICILT plans to build upon this success in 2022/23.
As part of our Languages for Employability programme, NICILT hosted two webinars which were accessed by pupils in 120 local schools. Each webinar explored how a language at GCSE helps pupils build their skillset and makes them more employable.
In February, schools submitted video entries for our Francofest and Hispanofest competitions. Teams completed a roleplay in their target language, either selling a product or marketing a town or region from the French or Spanish speaking world. After much deliberation, the judges named St Catherine’s College, Armagh overall winners of Francofest and St Patrick’s Academy, Dungannon overall winners of Hispanofest.
In March, NICILT hosted the Grand Final of our German Spelling Bee competition. Schools delivered an internal competition to select their top speller to advance to the final. Angelica Karamichas (Friends’ School, Lisburn) was awarded first prize, with Robert Lyle (Campbell College) named runner-up. We also ran an Irish Spelling Bee, with the final taking place on 11 March. More than 20 schools entered a pupil for the final. Jacob Hassett (Christian Brothers’ Grammar School, Omagh) was the overall winner with Molly McCaffery (St Dominic’s Grammar School, Belfast) and Enya McAuley (Cross and Passion College, Ballycastle) named joint runners-up.
School of SSESW academic John Topping (Criminology) has worked on a variety of research, consultancy and advisory roles with all the major policing institutions in Northern Ireland: the Police Service of Northern Ireland; Northern Ireland Policing Board; the Office of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland; and the Police Federation for Northern Ireland. He has also acted as an independent member of the Belfast Policing and Community Safety Partnership.
In the latest podcast from the Queen’s University Mitchell Institute, John discusses his research in police reform, policing in society and restorative justice. The podcast covers a range of issues related to policing in Northern Ireland and beyond, drawing on John’s experience as a policing academic. This includes the complexities of police reform, lessons for other jurisdictions, along with a reflection on that which has been achieved over the past 20 years in terms of policing in Northern Ireland.
As summarised by John: ’The lessons from policing here are complex, both in terms of what has been achieved, what has yet to be achieved, and what it means for other countries looking to reform their policing systems. Particularly set against current so-called ‘defund’ debates around policing, questioning the business of policing and police practice has never been so important - along with how that can be done in a manner which enhances community relations and human rights’.
The podcast is available at Mitchell Institute Conversations – Episode 8.
Queen’s University is represented by SSESW academics Karen Winter and Paul McCafferty in an innovative international partnership project arising from a UN Sustainable Development Goal on shared decision-making for all groups. The Participation and Collaboration for Protection (PANDA) project promotes the participation of young children (aged 12 and under) in child welfare decision-making in a transnational context by collating and disseminating learning materials for social workers, managers, policy officers and trainers in order to strengthen their collaboration with young children involved in child welfare/child protection services.
Guided by an Advisory Board bringing in the voice of the child, all project outputs are being co-designed in cooperation with stakeholders and offer an integrated approach to enhancing knowledge, skills, values, and practice in collaborating with young children. Project outputs will be hosted in an online platform comprising a media library for all stakeholders, a framework for management and policy officers and a toolkit for trainers.
Eight partners from Belgium, Spain, Norway and the UK (through Queen’s University) met in Norway in March for the second of four project meetings to continue their invaluable work.
Karen Winter (Social Work) commented: ‘With the launch of the Framework for Integrated Therapeutic Care, and the recognition that children’s participation is one of the vital organisational building blocks for establishing better integrated therapeutic care for children and young people and their caregivers, the work we are doing at Queen’s is of even greater importance.’
Paul McCafferty (Social Work) added: ‘Working with our agency partner - Voice of Young People in Care – we are delighted to continue the work we began in Ghent. As the Department of Health in Northern Ireland aspires to even greater levels of participation and inclusion, we at Queen’s are thrilled to be creating the tools and frameworks that will help make this aspiration a reality.’
This year’s British Association of Applied Linguistics conference (BAAL) will be held at Queen’s University on 1-3 September, hosted by a team of applied linguists from the School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work and the School of Arts, English and Languages. The conference theme Innovation and Social Justice in Applied Linguistics reflects an increasing interest in linguistics research that responds to real-world concerns.
In the face of a global health crisis and rising socio-racial awareness, the theme invites discussions around innovative and socially just practices in a field that is experiencing the multilingual, spatial and social justice turn all at once. It aims to stimulate conversations across disciplines and sub-disciplines of applied linguistics, about the field’s responses to global turbulence and shifts and current issues in language research.
Plenary speakers at BAAL 2022 will include Li Wei (University College London), Khawla Badwan (Manchester Metropolitan University), Vera Regan (University College Dublin) and Ahmar Mahboob (University of Sydney).
The organising committee for BAAL 2022 is chaired by Sultan Turkan, a School of SSESW academic who draws on a decade of teaching and research in Applied Linguistics across academic and corporate contexts in the USA, and includes colleagues from our Centre for Language Education Research: Ibrar Bhatt, Sin Wang Chong, Caroline Linse, Mel Engman and Aisling O’Boyle. For more information about the conference see BAAL 2022.
Queen's University Belfast, together with partners at the University of Limerick and the all island body Centre for Effective Services, will form a new and innovative cross-border research hub for youth crime, violence and criminal exploitation thanks to the ambitious North-South Research Programme.
The team has secured more than €3.3 million to build on their experience of supporting policy makers and practitioners around understanding and responding to these complex social issues.
The new cross-border 'Stable Lives, Safer Lives' research hub will connect high-quality research to policy makers in the Departments of Justice, Education and Health, as well as reaching practitioners and communities across the island of Ireland over the next four years.
School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work (SSESW) academic Colm Walsh (Criminology), who leads the Northern Ireland team, commented on the work being supported by the funding award:
"This is a fantastic development and I'm very proud to be part of it. The investment recognises the significant achievements that have been made in regard to understanding the vulnerabilities that lead some young people to be affected by crime, violence and exploitation, as well as the importance of academic, policy, practice partnerships in preventing it. We plan to grow this expertise and develop a world leading research hub in this area."
The North-South Research Programme aims to support the deepening of links between higher education institutions, researchers and research communities. The programme is a collaborative scheme arising from the Irish Government's 'Shared Island' Initiative and is being delivered by the Higher Education Authority. The programme will have €40 million available over a five-year period from 2022.
Research recommendations from a study completed in 2015 by School of SSESW colleagues Prof Joe Duffy and Prof Gavin Davidson (both Social Work) with Dr Subhajit Basu (University of Leeds) and Prof Katherine Pearson (Penn State University, USA) are incorporated into the current proposals for Adult Social Care Reform in Northern Ireland, which were launched for consultation on 26 January 2022 by the Minister for Health, Robin Swann. The original research, conducted for the Commissioner for Older People in Northern Ireland, was tasked with producing recommendations on legislation and policy relating to adult social care in Northern Ireland.
The research reviewed best practice internationally in these areas and their recommendations included legal reform to adult social care in Northern Ireland and the introduction of a Preventive/Support Visit to all older people from the age of 75 as a basis for further assessing and enabling their continuing independence. The research team highlighted that these structured visits, established in Denmark in 1998, improved mortality and functionality among older people as well as reducing both care and hospital admissions.
In light of these findings the team are hopeful their proposals for reform will become a part of the future adult social care landscape in Northern Ireland. More information is available on the Department of Health Consultation on The Reform of Adult Social Care webpage.
I came to Queen’s in 2011 to study for my PhD, and I have been a Research Fellow in the School since 2015. Prior to moving to Northern Ireland, I worked for five years in London as a social researcher in the public and voluntary sectors. My research at Queen’s focuses on education, social cohesion and (in)equalities in societies affected by division and conflict.
I work within our Centre for Shared Education and am currently involved in two strands of research. The first examines the implementation and impact of shared education initiatives, both in Northern Ireland and in other divided societies. Through this work I’ve been fortunate to work with schools and civil society organisations, locally and internationally, and I have published a number of research articles, reports and chapters. With Joanne Hughes, I have also shared the experience of shared education in Northern Ireland through podcasts for the International Network on Education in Emergencies and the British Educational Research Association.
The second strand of my research explores the experiences of education among parents and children from minority ethnic backgrounds in Northern Ireland. This project, on which I’m Principal Investigator, is funded by the Nuffield Foundation and examines participants’ perspectives on school admissions, the curriculum and home-school relationships. With Northern Ireland now a more diverse society, it is important that we understand how the education system functions for all pupils and can identify and address inequalities in provision. We are fortunate to have two excellent advisory groups – one involving statutory and community sector representatives, the other involving young people – to guide us in this work.
Beyond my research, I have taken an active role in postdoctoral life at Queen’s: I've helped to develop career and social support activities in the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences and have been a member of the University’s Postdoctoral Research Group. I also sit on the School of SSESW SWAN Committee to promote gender equality.
Outside work, I’m kept busy by my two dogs, who were rescues and now live in the lap of luxury! I’m a Quaker-appointed governor at Friends' School Lisburn and an avid crocheter, with my wedding dress in 2019 my proudest achievement.
- Welcome to postgraduate research student Bella Robinson who holds a Co-operative Award in Science and Technology, funded by the Department of Economy. Bella’s research, a collaborative project with the Centre and the Belfast Unemployed Resource Centre, focuses on community and volunteer-led language education initiatives for asylum seekers, refugees, and migrants. Bella has a background of volunteering within refugee and asylum seeker communities, supporting women who have been trafficked to overcome barriers to integration and language learning in Belfast.
- Ibrar Bhatt has been awarded a prestigious Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship to undertake research in the field of Literacy Studies. The project entitled Sino-Muslim Literacies draws on interpretive approaches in linguistic ethnography to examine writing and reading as primarily a social and cultural practice. It examines how Sino-Muslim religious, cultural and historical knowledge is produced and maintained through everyday and community literacy practices.
- This year marks the start of the International Decade of Indigenous Languages. Read more about this from Mel Engman on our Centre webpage.
- ‘Languages Provision in Further Education’ is a unique research project, funded by the British Academy, investigating trends in languages provision in the Further Education sector over the past 20 years in the UK. The research team, led by Ian Collen, is engaging with key stakeholder groups and conducting a UK-wide survey of FE staff and students.
- Sin Wang Chong’s TESOLgraphics project is producing infographical summaries of secondary research in Applied Linguistics and TESOL and making research findings accessible to teachers across globe. The visual summaries of secondary research which can be read in 5 minutes are proving really popular, with thousands of visitors to the website and a twitter following of almost 700! You can follow @tesolgraphics.
- The latest edition of BAAL News (British Association of Applied Linguistics) features contributions from several remarkable BAAL members offering perspectives on the future of BAAL and Applied Linguistics. Centre Director Aisling O’Boyle is one of them!
Queen’s Innovation Zones is a Queen’s Social Charter Signature initiative that has been working alongside two influential community organisations in West Belfast for over five years. Together they have been finding innovative ways to provide opportunities for improving the health, education and wellbeing of children, young people and families facing disadvantage.
This interdisciplinary and intersectoral initiative is led by Liam O’Hare (School of SSESW) and works with the Shankill Children and Young People’s Zone and the Colin Neighbourhood Partnership. They are supported by many partners including the Northern Ireland (NI) Executive Office (Urban Villages initiative), NI Public Health Agency, Ulster Orchestra and leading research funders such as the National Institute of Health Research.
The Innovation Zones, community organisations and partners use a powerful combination of shared goal setting, critical thinking and creativity to develop innovative approaches, which incorporate research evidence on ‘what works’ and use community insight to understand ‘who it works for’ and in ‘what circumstances’.
Some of the emerging innovations and affiliated projects include: Crescendo, a community music education, social and emotional development programme; Conversations, a method for facilitating, understanding and acting on the aspirations of disadvantaged children and young people; and Common Assets, a UK wide community and university collaboration to understand the health benefits that local community led organisations provide.
Liam O’Hare is an expert in the design, implementation and evaluation of social and educational innovation programmes. He works within community and university partnerships to improve educational attainment and wellbeing outcomes of disadvantaged children, young people and families both locally and internationally.
Liam said: ‘I think community and university partnership working is the most enjoyable work an academic can do. You work with fantastic partners and use research to provide opportunities to people who will benefit from them the most.’
For more information or to get involved see Innovation Zones or contact Liam at l.ohare@qub.ac.uk.
I am a final-year undergraduate student on the BA Criminology course at School of Social Sciences, Education, and Social Work (SSESW) at Queen’s University. I am the proud mother of seven children and grandmother to one grandson, with two more grandchildren due later this year. I was raised by an incredibly strong woman, my mother Joyce, who sadly passed away during my studies after battling cancer.
I was researching my next academic options while finishing an access to higher education course in Social Sciences and Humanities at my local tech when I came across the Queen’s University criminology programme. After spending most of my working life as a prison officer, criminology seemed like a natural fit for me. After attending their open day, meeting with the staff and walking around the campus, I decided SSESW was the place for me. The staff are extremely friendly and knowledgeable about their respective fields.
I enjoyed being part of SSESW so much that I became the course rep for Criminology with Quantitative Methods in my second year and then school rep in my final year. Being an SSESW school rep has been an honour and has boosted my self-esteem. I would strongly advise students to apply for course and school rep positions if the opportunity arises. The training and support you will receive will help you develop employability skills. I have taken advantage of numerous opportunities since joining Queen’s, and I have achieved Degree Plus status by participating in the extra-curricular activities offered. I am also a volunteer editor for the SSESW journal, which is now in its second year of publication, and I was fortunate enough to have one of my own entries published in the journal during its first year.
Even though I am nearing the end of my undergraduate degree, I sit in the quad, soaking in the surroundings and still pinching myself that I am a student at Queen’s. It's one of the best decisions I ever made. I am unsure of what my next steps are. I have applied for a Master’s in Youth Justice at Queen’s but have also applied for jobs to help me expand my skillset in this area, so I guess … watch this space. Coming to university has opened so many doors for me that I never would have even knocked on before. I have made life-long friends with students and staff alike.
School of SSESW academic Tess Maginess was awarded the Vice-Chancellor’s Prize for Research Engagement for ‘consistently going over and above to work in an inclusive and collaborative way’.
Tess commented: ‘For 20 years, our Open Learning Programme has conducted award-winning research on innovative engaged pedagogies with community-based partners, especially disadvantaged groups.
This work focuses on ‘grand challenge’ themes, including mental health and ageing. Valuing partners’ expertise, Open Learning co-designs programmes with partners and offers accredited workshop learning, with support systems for participants.
We developed an international partnership with the University of Fraser Valley, British Columbia, to devise a Photovoice project. It uses arts-based workshops with rural migrant women in British Columbia and Northern Ireland, to explore exclusion and belonging and to engage in knowledge exchange, intercultural learning, capacity building and mentoring. It will create recommendations for policy and relevant lifelong learning initiatives. Our partnership with University of Atypical will help disseminate the project widely.
We delivered a Professional Skills Certificate pilot online module on Cultural Understanding for Queen’s undergraduates, based on Sustainable Development Goal themes: Valuing Black Lives; Climate Change; Ageing; Intercultural Understanding – Migrant Experiences; and Active Civic Democracy. Literature, film and music were incorporated to really connect with learners about key ‘Real World’ topics.
With Arts Council funding we delivered a co-designed programme with older people, Artage (Arts and older people), on representations of ageing in literature, building on my research with students on learning and ageing and on dementia in literature. Results from this partnership between Open Learning, Age NI, Commission for Older People and u3a will be disseminated through a website created with The Nerve Centre.
Our research project on community lifelong learning needs surveyed community and voluntary groups commonly marginalised, including The Migrant Centre NI, Transgender NI and Disability Action. The survey revealed interest in co-designing a course with Open Learning. In Phase two, we interviewed community stakeholders. Topics on the resulting course included Understanding Northern Ireland for BAME communities and Active Citizenship Through an LGBTQI Lens.’
Alongside a busy career and her studies on our MSc Systemic Practice and Family Therapy, social worker Ciara Smyth is making her name as an award winning children’s author by blending her creative skills with her social work experience. Her latest book has won a Waterstones Children's Books Award.
Ciara commented on her writing success:
'After completing a BA in Drama, I graduated from my BSW Social Work graduate route in 2020. While I was studying I was simultaneously writing my debut novel The Falling in Love Montage and my second novel Not My Problem. Both books are for young people. The Falling in Love Montage was the recipient of the Children's Books Ireland Junior Juries' Award 2021 and most recently Not My Problem was the Winner of the Waterstones Children's Book Award for the Older Readers Category.
I wrote Not My Problem during my final year at Queen’s and I think my work definitely reflects my experiences of being a student social worker at the time. Not My Problem is a story about Aideen who is struggling with school, friendships and her mum's alcohol use. She tries to avoid dealing with her own problems by solving problems for others. Along the way she gets into a lot of mischief and her sense of humour and budding new friendships carry her through difficult times. It was a real thrill and honour to win this prize because the Waterstones Belfast store is practically my second home!’
Ciara’s latest book is available at Not My Problem.
School of SSESW academic Catherine Storey, who was appointed recently to the board of the UK Society for Behaviour Analysis, was invited to deliver the keynote talk at the Beyond Autism Conference in May. Usually based in London, the conference was online this year due to the pandemic. The conference theme this year was ‘Whose decision is it anyway?’
Beyond Autism is a charity devoted to ensuring that every autistic person has access to an education that empowers them to lead a life full of choice, empowerment, independence and opportunity. The conference attracts participants from across the UK including key policy makers, politicians, local education authorities, students, clinicians and professionals from a broad range of disciplines. It offers expert speakers who tackle the real questions faced by professionals striving to educate children and young adults towards a life with as much independence as possible.
Catherine’s keynote talk focussed on the importance of involving autistic people in the research that is conducted about their lives, from planning the project through to dissemination of outcomes, to bridge the gap between research and practice and ensure that Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) research is meaningful and impactful to those individuals to whom it directly relates. Catherine’s input to the conference was based on expertise gained from her current research on video-based interventions for promoting positive social behaviour for people with ASD. This systematic review and meta-analysis has invited autistic individuals to participate in an expert advisory group that will directly advise the project partners on the most useful and impactful data that should be extracted from the existing research and ultimately shared with key stakeholders and policy makers in the Autism Spectrum Disorder field.
Social Work academic Karen Winter is part of a research team that has been awarded £860,818 by the Economic and Social Research Council for a new project on ‘0-3-year old children’s language and literacy learning at home in a digital age (0-3s, Tech and Talk)’.
Focussing on 0-3-year-olds at home in diverse mono- and multi-lingual communities in each of the four UK nations, this two-year study will explore how society’s youngest children develop language and literacy as they interact with people and with digital devices to communicate in creative, playful and collaborative ways across the diverse representational and sensory modes available in digital platforms.
The research project addresses the current research gap around how very young children interact with, around and through digital media, what devices and platforms they have access to, how long-standing social divides determine digital device ownership and use, and how parents, carers and siblings in majority and minority ethnic, privileged and disadvantaged UK communities support 0-3-year-olds' learning with digital media.
The study design includes a UK-wide survey of parents/guardians with very young children, interviews with parents/guardians and early education and care professionals, followed by in-depth ethnographic case studies of 40 young children’s everyday language and literacy practices at home with their families. It is hoped that a small group of very young children who are in care will be included in the study. The study will be supported by an international advisory board, running from Spring 2022-Spring 2024.
The project team is led by Prof Rosie Flewitt (Manchester Metropolitan University, Principal Investigator) and includes Co-Investigators from across the UK: Prof Karen Winter (Queen’s University Belfast), Dr Lorna Arnott (University of Strathclyde), Prof Julia Gillen (Lancaster University) and Dr Janet Goodall (Swansea University).
Karen’s contribution will draw on her research expertise in undertaking ethnographic research with young children, focusing on communication, in their home environments and on her research with young children in care. More information is available on the UK Research and Innovation website 0-3s, Tech and Talk project summary web page.
Deaths involving heroin, morphine and cocaine were the highest on record in Northern Ireland in 2019. At a launch event in April, colleagues from our Drugs and Alcohol Research Network joined the Director General of the Northern Ireland Prison Service and colleagues from the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency to outline findings from a feasibility study on reducing opioid-related deaths.
The study assessed the feasibility of ‘wearing’ a device within a sample from a homeless hostel population. The device monitors the wearer’s vital signs, transferring data from the device to a backend cloud service and alerting the wearer to a potential overdose. It triggers help that, in the first instance, takes the form of the self-administration of the drug Naloxone or, if no response, supported by GPS technology, dials out to emergency medical services for help and treatment.
The initial phase of the project involved focus groups from two Northern Ireland prisons, seeking views on the wearable product and the feasibility of the project from people at risk of opioid overdose on return to the community. These co-produced views continue to inform prototype design, development and implementation. The second phase of the project involved participants wearing the current commercial device whilst in a homeless shelter and under the supervision of staff.
The assessment of feasibility included data generated through the wearable devices, the views of project participants and those in the prison opioid population who agreed to be involved. From the data obtained from the wearables devices, it was concluded that it was feasible to use a wearable device for monitoring opioid users’ biomarkers remotely.
The research team (Anne Campbell, Sharon Millen, Amanda Taylor Beswick) is part of a four nation Medical Research Council funding application for a five-year project to trial and monitor the devices across the UK, in an effort to reduce opioid related overdose deaths.
Drawing on research carried out in partnership with Barnardos Fostering Northern Ireland, School of SSESW social work lecturers Mandi MacDonald and Gerry Marshall launched an e-learning resource to help promote lasting supportive relationships in foster care.
Long-term foster care is intended to provide young people with continuous, caring relationships that last into adult life. However, many care leavers can feel isolated and navigate early adulthood without a strong social network. Enabling young people to benefit from lasting supportive relationships with their foster family is, therefore, a priority.
Learning from care experienced adults and their former foster carers, who have stayed connected, the SSESW research identified the active ingredients of lasting foster family relationships, and the conditions in which they could thrive.
To help embed key messages from the research into social work and foster care practice, the SSESW team have produced a Research for Practice Summary and an e-learning resource which summarise key themes and offer suggestions and reflective prompts to stimulate creative individual-level micro practices, or larger scale policy and practice initiatives. The e-learning presents a series of short videos, each followed by prompts for individual reflection or group discussion, and is designed to be used by individual practitioners or teams, either in one sitting or over a series of team meetings or self-guided workshops.
The resources are hosted on the Barnardos University learning platform as learning for Barnardos staff and volunteers across the UK. They can also be accessed from Queen’s University website at Lasting Relationships in Foster Care
For more information contact Dr Mandi MacDonald at m.macdonald@qub.ac.uk
The School of SSESW is collaborating with two South African universities, Rhodes University and the University of Fort Hare, in an important five year programme to support inclusive and engaged research projects which seek to address local socio-educational challenges in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. The process involves building capacity and long-term networks for cross-institutional and international research projects to address global challenges.
It is centred around the research of ten academic and professional staff members from the two South African universities, who share a commitment to create conducive research cultures which cross their historically black/white institutional divides. The research topics cut across a number of Sustainable Development Goals, as do many of our research interests in Social Sciences, Education and Social Work at Queen’s University.
The project is led at Queen’s by Dina Zoe Belluigi (Education) and Lorna Montgomery (Social Work), with prior input from Danielle Turney (Social Work, Professor Emeritus) and support early on from Jannette Elwood and later from Emma Flynn, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Enterprise. As Visiting Scholars, each researcher from South Africa has been connected with academics and researchers at the School of SSESW who are interested in building long-term research relationships with the scholars and their local supervisors, in what may become a multidisciplinary network of researchers, practitioners and civil society organisations in South Africa.
We hope to create even more openings by providing spaces for engagement during events scheduled over 14 days in Belfast in June 2022. Informal pictures of engagements are posted on Instagram, and the group can also be followed on Twitter. The overall project (2021-2025) is funded by the British Council and the Department for Higher Education and Training of South Africa.
At the launch of the latest Northern Ireland Policing Board’s (NIPB) Annual Human Rights Report, the ongoing stop and search research of School of SSESW criminologist John Topping continues to impact on police policy and practice in the country. In recommendation 11 of the Report, the NIPB Human Rights Advisor requested that the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) publish research they commissioned by John Topping around stop and search practice by PSNI.
Acknowledging the contribution of his work to understandings of stop and search more generally, Recommendation 11 of the Annual Report states:
"Research undertaken for the PSNI by Dr Topping found that PSNI officers felt pressured to conduct high volumes of searches and that this was in response to the specific culture inside individual states rather than any formal target-setting reasons."
The recommendation goes on to note that: “The PSNI should publish Dr Topping’s research and provide an official response to its findings."
John responded: “While the PSNI remains a heavily overseen police service, ‘ordinary’ stop and search powers remain elusive to pin down within the regulatory framework. The powers of stop and search remain controversial both locally for PSNI as well as nationally within a UK policing context. What my research provides is not just an understanding of the volume and outcomes related to PSNI - which remain some of the poorest by UK policing standards - but a window into understandings around why stop and search remains problematic at an organisational level. We await to see if PSNI will follow the Human Rights Advisor’s recommendation to publish the commissioned work."
John’s other research around stop and search includes Young People’s Experiences of Police Stop and Search Powers in Northern Ireland and The (In)Visibility of Police Stop and Search in Northern Ireland.
Aisling O’Boyle, Director of our Centre for Language Education Research, has co-authored a new book entitled Corpus Linguistics for English for Academic Purposes (EAP). The area of corpus linguistics is one of the most dynamic and rapidly developing areas in the field of language studies and the use of corpora is essential in any modern linguistic research.
The book shows how corpus analyses can enhance students’, practitioners’ and researchers’ knowledge of academic language. It provides a reader-friendly discussion of the key concepts, practices and research applications of corpus linguistics which are relevant to the EAP community and empowers readers to compile and analyze EAP-relevant corpora to support their own practice.
Aisling and co-author Vander Viana have worked on several corpus-based projects and are part of an international network of researchers. This book is part of the series edited by Dr Anne O’Keeffe and Professor Mike McCarthy and co-founded by the late Ronald Carter (1947-2018).
Reviewing the contribution of this book to the field of corpus linguistics and English for Academic Purposes, Professor Key Hyland notes it “is an exceptionally valuable addition to the literature on EAP and will be extremely useful to those seeking to learn how they can use corpora to both research and teach academic English."
You can read more about it on the publisher website Corpus Linguistics for English for Academic Purposes - 1st Edition - V (routledge.com) and follow @CLER_QUB for news on upcoming guest speaker book events from the Centre for Language Education Research.
I am delighted to bring you the Winter 2022/23 newsletter from the School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work (SSESW) at Queen’s University Belfast.
The newsletter continues to highlight our teaching, research and innovation and our engagement with professionals and policy makers in national and international settings. The aim of making a social difference is at the core of our work. In particular, we seek to connect the Northern Ireland community with world leading experts and to share with the global audience the recognised excellence in Northern Ireland schools and agencies.
In this issue we are particularly delighted to showcase our international partnerships and impact and our collaborations with schools.
Professor Daniel Muijs
Head of School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work
School of SSESW academic Michael Duffy is one of two trauma experts from Queen’s University who are working with clinicians in Ukraine and Poland to support people affected by the war in Ukraine. Michael has been providing online workshops and webinars on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and is involved with the University's School of Medicine in a twinning project with the Shupyk National Healthcare University of Ukraine.
Michael is working with Ciaran Mulholland (School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences) to provide advice for the Warsaw based Akademia Motywacji Edukacji. Ciaran is a Consultant Psychiatrist and Michael is research/clinical advisor at the Northern Ireland Regional Trauma Network.
The aim of these lectures and training sessions is to provide safe and professional expertise for therapists trying to help people in Ukraine and refugees. Many will develop PTSD and/or prolonged grief disorder (PGD) which may last for months or even years afterwards.
Michael specialises in PTSD and complex grief and is regarded as a world leading expert in trauma and conflict and cognitive therapy for PTSD. In the past, he provided many workshops on PTSD after large scale traumas including the 9/11 Twin Towers attack, the 7/11 London bombings, the Oslo bombing, the Utoya Island shootings and the Manchester concert bomb.
In October, Michael provided a two-day workshop in Warsaw on Trauma Focussed Cognitive Behaviour Therapy for PTSD and will return to provide two further days on Traumatic Grief. Michael said: “There are four million Ukranian refugees in Poland, and the city of Warsaw has great empathy for their suffering given its own traumatic history. The current circumstances that many children and adults are facing are appalling. We must enable therapists to provide therapies that work for PTSD and PGD and also ensure that systems are in place to support and protect those therapists.”
Members of our Centre for Children’s Rights (Corr, Holland & McKinstry) have been commissioned by the Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People (NICCY) to conduct research with children, young people and families facing homelessness and housing insecurity in Northern Ireland. This builds on a scoping paper the Centre completed for NICCY in April 2022, which emphasised that families remain a substantial proportion of all homeless households and that despite a decrease in homeless presentations, placements in temporary accommodation for families and young people aged 16-17 have increased.
The paper also identified a number of gaps in supports for particular groups including young people with disabilities, families and young people subject to immigration control and young care leavers as well as supports specific to mental health and addiction.
The current research aims to increase understanding of the lives of children and families facing homelessness and housing insecurity in Northern Ireland. In-depth interviews with 25 individuals, including children and young people aged 10-21 and parents of children in homeless contexts, are being conducted. They explore: participants’ experiences of navigating housing services and accessing support; the nature of participants’ homelessness and the adequacy of accommodation for families, children and young people; and the impact of homelessness and housing insecurity on the lives of children and young people across a range of domains such as education, health, relationships, leisure time and social and emotional wellbeing.
Drawing on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, a key focus is to interpret accounts of participants’ lived experiences of homelessness/housing insecurity through a rights lens, identifying how these experiences impact on children’s rights and highlighting areas where the Government and agencies are meeting, or failing to meet, their obligations.
For more information contact Dr Mary-Louise Corr, m.corr@qub.ac.uk
I am a Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Director for our undergraduate Criminology programme. My research expertise includes imprisonment and criminological psychology, which focuses on comprehending why people engage in crime, how society responds to crime, and how individuals begin to leave behind a criminal career. Prior to joining Queen’s University Belfast, I worked in the Republic of Ireland university sector and public sector, gaining experience of engaging with those involved in offending, people affected by crime, criminal justice practitioners, policymakers, academics and students.
My interest in offending began as a teenager as I watched people take different paths and how those paths affected them and the people around them. I wanted to understand the factors that could influence people’s behaviour and the different ways society can respond to this behaviour. This curiosity led me to study psychology before specialising in forensic psychology and then criminology. While a student, I volunteered with organisations providing support to people dealing with difficult and challenging situations, including victims of crime, people recently released from prison and the families of those in prison. This experience cemented my interest in crime, its consequences and how society responds to crime, motivating me to try to improve society by enhancing our knowledge regarding why people offend, how we can reduce offending and how we can best support those affected by crime.
This motivation has shaped my work and is evident in my research examining the outcomes people experience in prison, penal policy, the effect of imprisonment on children and factors contributing to offending behaviour more generally. My research expertise has informed and guided the work of the Northern Ireland Prison Service, the Irish Prison Service and His Majesty’s Prison Service as they seek to improve prison conditions and lessen offending. It has also led the Government of Uganda to recognise children of those in prison as a vulnerable group requiring extra protection, services and supports.
Additionally, my research expertise informs my teaching on modules such as ‘Introducing Criminology’, ‘Punishment, Penal Policy and Prison’ and ‘Psychological Perspectives on Crime’. I enjoy watching students use this research to expand their knowledge and address issues in our society.
As part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science, School of SSESW academics Carl Bagley and Montserrat Fargas held an event on the Future of Small Rural Primary Schools in Northern Ireland on 5 November at Queen’s University. They presented findings from their ‘Small School Rural Community Study’ and distributed copies of the study report. The presentation was followed by questions from the audience and a panel discussion. Panellists included key stakeholders, such as representatives from the Department of Education, the Education Authority, the Independent Review of Education, the Rural Community Network, the Integrated Education Fund and Ulster University.
The last policy report on small, rural schools was written 20 years ago by SSESW academic Tony Gallagher. In 2009, the Department of Education Sustainable Schools policy established that schools in rural areas should have at least 105 pupils. The Small School Rural Community Study aimed to explore the relationship between small rural schools and the communities they serve. The research surveyed 91 principals and talked to teaching and non-teaching staff, parents, pupils and governors from five selected schools. The study shows that while 40 percent of rural schools have less pupils than the recommended level, they play a key role in rural communities, have strong and dynamic relationships with the local community and their relatively low pupil-to-teacher ratio encourages a family-like environment.
Carl Bagley said: "At a time when educational budgets are coming under intense scrutiny, the pressures on small rural primary schools are likely to be particularly acute. In such a climate, it is more important than ever to fully understand and appreciate the enormous value of these schools to children and the close-knit communities they serve.”
The research featured in the Slugger O’Toole blog, local BBC News and the Irish News. The report is available at Small School Rural Community Study.
The first undergraduate conference for School of SSESW Social Work students took place at Queen's University in October, co-hosted by our Social Work team of academics and third year students Ioan Racasan and Geoffrey Kennedy, and the British Association for Social Work, Northern Ireland (BASW NI). Earlier this year Ioan and Geoffrey identified this unique opportunity for students to hear from Social Work practitioners and providers and, with help from fellow student Sarah McQuitty and other class volunteers, they collaborated with Northern Ireland agencies to plan this inaugural event.
After a welcome from Ioan and Head of School Professor Daniel Muijs, Professor Joe Duffy introduced the conference and BASW NI outlined its membership services and support. Keynote speaker, Dr Neil Thompson, presented on Social Work: A force for good, followed by discussion with participants. Neil’s expertise encompasses equality and diversity; conflict management; mental health and wellbeing; grief and trauma.
Guests then visited networking stands to connect with social workers from all the Health Trusts, Youth Justice Agency, Probation Board for Northern Ireland and the Office of Social Services. They heard presentations from Bryson Care on Social Work Voices and the Shared Stories Narrative Model. Barnardo's presented on Working With Refugees and their refugee and asylum seekers service.
Ioan Racasan commented: “This conference was tailored for all levels, from students starting their Social Work journey to students in third year. All in the room were there because we want to promote social change and empower people as we believe that social work is a force for good."
Geoffrey Kennedy added: "This was an example of professionals coming together to motivate the future generation of social workers to use our voice to do good. This opportunity to learn from experienced professionals is a catalyst to our journey in speaking up to bring change to the world.”
I joined Queen’s University as the new Head of the School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work in September 2022. Previously I worked for a range of universities in England, Belgium and the Netherlands, and also had a spell in the civil service, leading the research and evaluation team at the English education and children’s social care inspectorate Ofsted.
I am delighted to take on the Head of School role at this vibrant, multi-disciplinary School. Thanks to the great work of both academic and professional services staff, and of Prof Carl Bagley, my predecessor as Head of School, the School is in a strong position. In the most recent Research Excellence Framework, 83% of our research was rated as excellent or world-leading. Our teaching is among the best in the country, with Social Work, for example, being ranked in second place nationally. Our international reputation is growing. I intend to build further on these strengths.
My research background is studying what makes schools and teachers effective, and I have also done research on collaboration between schools, and on school leadership. I am passionate about improving the quality of education and giving every child the best possible opportunities regardless of background, and am keen to connect research to practice. In England I have worked with organisations like ResearchEd and the Education Endowment Foundation to connect with teachers and schools and support evidence-based practice in education. I also believe strongly in working with policy, and have done so working with Department for Education and Ofsted in England and the Ministry of Education in Flanders over recent years. I intend to make similar connections with practice and policy here in Northern Ireland.
I am originally from Belgium (the Flemish part), and moved to the UK in 1997. I have lived in different parts of England ever since. I am currently commuting between Southampton and Belfast, but my wife and I are planning to move to Northern Ireland in the coming year.
And, finally, the answer to the question everyone asks me: my surname is pronounced Murs (as in Olly).
An interdisciplinary team of academics from the School of SSESW led an innovative project with local school pupils in October. Paul Best (Social Work) and Nichola Booth (Education) collaborated with pupils from Regent House Grammar School, Newtownards, to produce immersive virtual reality (VR) training scenarios to support classroom assistant training at the South Eastern Regional College (SERC).
Drama pupils from Years 10 and 11 at Regent House worked with Paul and Nichola, and Chris Thomas (Propeer Solutions). The project, funded by UFI Voctech Trust, has been designed in collaboration with a multidisciplinary team comprising primary and post primary teachers and classroom assistants from a number of schools across Northern Ireland.
This immersive training for classroom assistants will augment the traditional teaching methods of the Level 3 Certificate in Supporting Teaching and Learning at the SERC campuses in Lisburn, Bangor, Newtownards, Newcastle and Downpatrick. The project will incorporate both virtual reality scenarios and immersive video that will enable the certificate students to experience in a safe, controlled manner some of the issues they might encounter when they come to work in classrooms.
It will also allow the students to fulfil some coursework requirements with embedded compulsory units as part of the design. Students will engage with the VR environment, which will include situations such as safeguarding problems, behaviour difficulties or general classroom conditions. They will then ‘problem-solve’, via the VR headset, the decisions they could make about those situations in an actual school environment. The immersive experience will provide specific information on these choices, allowing them to build on their learning and enabling transfer from the virtual world to the real world. These decisions will then form the basis for the completion of required coursework components.
The project will be trialled across SERC in 2023.
Graduate of our BA Criminology and Sociology, MRes and doctoral programme
I am a Research Fellow in the Institute of Education at University College London. I studied at Queen’s University, School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work between 2012 and 2020. On completing my BA in Criminology and Sociology in 2015, I went on to study an MRes in Social Research Methods and a PhD examining attainment inequalities in Northern Ireland. My interest in Social Sciences began when I was an A Level student and was introduced to Sociology and Criminology.
When I applied to university, the decision to study Criminology and Sociology seemed an obvious one. Queen’s University stood out due to its friendly atmosphere on campus and the passion of its students. At its Open Day, one speaker remarked that when you become a student at the University, you become part of the ‘Queen’s family’. This message still resonates with me today when I reflect on my time at Queen’s.
On completing my BA, I wanted to continue expanding my knowledge in research methods and social inequalities. The MRes provided that opportunity and I was awarded a Q-Step scholarship to support me. The MRes paved the way for my PhD which was funded through a Department for the Economy studentship.
During my student years, I was Course Representative and School Representative for my fellow students and a research and development volunteer for Barnardo’s Northern Ireland. More recently, I was a Queen’s Graduates’ Association committee member and served as Honorary Secretary.
From my first day as an undergraduate student to my final one as a postgraduate research student, I had friendly and supportive lecturers, teaching assistants and personal tutors who always had time to help my personal and career development as a Social Scientist. The undergraduate and postgraduate programmes provided a great choice of modules, allowing me to tailor the courses to my own interests.
The University provides students with outstanding facilities, such as the McClay Library and The Graduate School, which enrich the student experience through access to high quality learning resources, study spaces and training to support study and students’ professional development. Support services such as the Student Centre were extremely helpful in guiding my next steps.
My years at Queen’s University Belfast are among the most enriching and rewarding of my life and have shaped my perspective on the social world today.
Update: Since this article was written Erin has taken up a post as a Lecturer in Sociology at Queen's University Belfast.
Sociology colleagues in the School of SSESW were delighted to bring this year’s Sociology Conference for AS and A2 Level Students to Queen’s University on 8 November. Nearly 600 students from schools across Northern Ireland brought a fantastic buzz to the campus as they were welcomed to the Whitla Hall by the new Head of School, Professor Daniel Muijs. They heard a range of talks from our Sociology academics, all aimed at bringing AS and A2 Level curricula to life.
The presentations by Lisa Smyth, John Nagle, Madeleine Leonard, Rin Ushiyama, Jonathan Heaney and Veronique Altglas focused on the theories and methods shaping the group’s own research, including work on how to conceptualise and analyse key aspects of contemporary societies, from culture and religious belief to gender inequality, childhood and crime. The conference included a brief introduction to studying Sociology at Queen’s, as well as opportunities to explore the University campus.
The popularity of the conference indicates the strength of Sociology in schools across Northern Ireland. This is perhaps unsurprising, given the discipline’s focus on explaining those structural inequalities, forms of social power and dimensions of human agency that are so often at the heart of current social and political debate. The Sociology team appreciated the opportunity to strengthen links with teachers across Northern Ireland and look forward to working more closely with them in the future. Check out Sociology courses for information about our single and joint honours degrees in Sociology.
Academics from our Social Work team have highlighted ongoing inequality with a contribution to the United Nations Global Impact Network UK’s Measuring Up 2.0 report launched in September. In 2015, the UK Government joined many other countries and committed to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Goals provide a holistic framework to eradicate poverty, reduce inequalities, combat catastrophic climate change and protect our natural environment by 2030.
The UN Global Impact Network UK released Measuring Up 2.0 to measure the UK’s performance against the 17 SDGs and their 169 targets, to understand how and where the Government, and other organisations, should focus efforts for the remainder of the Decade of Action.
School of SSESW colleagues Anne Campbell and Lorna Montgomery wrote the Queen’s University contribution to the report. Their chapter on SDG 10 ‘Reduced Inequalities - within and among countries’ highlights the widening inequality gaps and discusses income and wage inequality, poverty, discrimination, and Asylum seekers, refugees and worker migrants.
Anne said: “SDG 10 focuses on empowering and promoting the social, economic, and political inclusion of all, irrespective of sex, discrimination, race, ethnicity, origin, religion and economic or other status. If achieved, the Goal offers progress on a range of existing inequalities and would be transformative for many individuals in the UK.”
Lorna added: “There has been some, although limited, success in achieving the SDG 10 Goal, although the percentage of people at risk of poverty continues to increase. Whilst the general trend in terms of disability, gender and race has also been one of improvement, significant inequalities still remain.”
This is the second phase of Measuring Up, with the first report released in 2018. The chapter on SDG 10 ‘Reduced Inequalities’ is available at UN Global Impact Network UK's Measuring Up 2.0 report.
Many congratulations to one of our new cohort of MSc Systemic Psychotherapy students, Erin Johnston, who has been awarded a Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Scholarship award worth £7,500. In her application to the awards scheme, Erin wrote about her personal circumstances and how her Systemic training to date has enabled her to better help children and young people and work with them and their families to reduce their likelihood of entering the care system.
Erin completed her Postgraduate Certificate and her Diploma in Systemic Practice and Family Therapy with us previously. Her Platinum Jubilee scholarship was presented at a special University event on 9 November which included awarding the scholarships and unveiling a new portrait by artist Michelle Rogers which was unveiled by the Lord Lieutenant of Belfast, Dame Fionnuala Jay-O’Boyle and the former President of Ireland, Professor Mary McAleese.
Erin said of her award: ‘With this scholarship I can focus on my studies and apply the learning to practice which will ensure I am skilled to help children remain at home where possible. Families are often the source of difficulties. However, working systemically can help families navigate these challenges by helping them to strengthen and maximise the relationships within a family.
I am so grateful and honoured to have been awarded the scholarship. I have found that, since completing my undergraduate degree in Social Work at Queen’s University Belfast and the systemic training to date, it has opened a whole new world for me. I see the benefits and opportunities that come with a higher education and a value which I hold in high regard and instil in my children. I am immensely privileged to have had the opportunity to study at Queen’s and to continue with my studies.’
See Systemic Practice for information on this programme.
School of SSESW colleagues Gemma Carney (Social Policy) and Paula Devine (ARK Co-Director) are co-investigators in the interdisciplinary research project Dementia in the Minds of Characters and Readers. The research is led by Jane Lugea (School of Arts, English and Languages at Queen’s University) and includes Carolina Fernández-Quintanilla (University of Granada) and author Jan Carson (winner of the EU Prize for Literature in 2019).
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the research explores the potential for fiction to promote awareness and understanding around the lived experience of dementia. Dementia is a wide-ranging and complex set of conditions. However, no two dementia experiences are the same as everyone living with it will experience a unique set of symptoms and circumstances.
The project commissioned fourteen new short stories for an anthology, published by New Island Press. In A Little Unsteadily Into Light, edited by Jan Carson and Jane Lugea, some of the best contemporary writers explore the depths and breadth of the dementia experience powerfully and poignantly, crossing over ethnicity, class and gender, sex and consent.
Data from the 2014 Northern Ireland Life and Times survey, directed by Paula Devine, indicate stigmatisation and stereotyping of people living with dementia so it is important that the anthology disrupts common perceptions of what dementia is and attempts to break down the stigma endured by those living with it. The book is available from some booksellers, or from New Island Press.
Gemma Carney noted that a key aspect of the anthology is that all the contributing authors had personal experience of dementia among family or friends. As Éilis Ní Dhuibhne wrote in her Irish Times review, the stories are all very different, utterly surprising and stunningly good.
For more information on the project, see Dementia in the Minds of Characters and Readers.
Recent doctoral graduates Emma Craig and Jenny Ferguson, with their SSESW supervisor Katerina Dounavi, delivered two talks on telehealth at the 11th international conference of the Association for Behaviour Analysis International in Dublin in September. The talks described two studies conducted at the Telehealth Lab (established by Centre for Behaviour Analysis Deputy Director Katerina Dounavi in 2016) which examined the effectiveness of telehealth.
Telehealth is the use of technology for the delivery of care to people in need. It makes use of videoconferencing software and devices such as mobile phones to deliver health-related services including to conduct assessments and offer training and interventions. Telehealth has proven effective across various health conditions such as diabetes, heart disease and autism and it has been widely adopted by governments during COVID-19.
The first study conducted at our Telehealth Lab assessed a brief functional analysis and functional communication training conducted by professionals working with children with autism across different countries. The second assessed the effects of using telehealth to train parents on how to boost the communication skills of children with autism.
Both studies yielded very positive results and were considered useful by parents and professionals. The Telehealth Lab is led by SSESW academic Katerina Dounavi. Work undertaken within its scope focuses on the use of technology for the assessment of needs, delivery of interventions and training surrounding people with developmental needs, their parents and supporting professionals.
Outcomes of these studies have been published open access at the Journal of Developmental and Physical Disabilities and can be read at Functional Communication Training Conducted Through Telehealth and Using Telehealth to Coach Parents of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder on How to Use Naturalistic Teaching to Increase Mands, Tacts and Intraverbals.
A Queen’s University team that includes School of SSESW academics Lorna Montgomery and Mandi MacDonald (both Social Work), Charlene McShane (Centre for Public Health) and Olinda Santin (School of Nursing and Midwifery) has been working with Ugandan colleagues from Makerere University and Clarke International University, Uganda, in order to explore the roles, responsibilities and support needs of Ugandan carers of chronic non-communicable disease patients.
The international team has successfully obtained two awards funded by the Department for Education and the Global Challenges Research Fund, and a recent Impact Acceleration Award (2022). They have developed a programme of research in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and community and hospice partners in Uganda. The research has explored the ways in which the underdeveloped and underfunded health systems in Uganda, alongside culturally determined familial obligations, have placed a significant burden on family caregivers. The research has identified the urgent need to address carer burden and to foster a responsive health system for carer support in Uganda.
The team are responding to a request by the Ugandan Ministry of Health to co-produce a government policy on supporting carers based on the findings of their original research. This will be the first such policy in Uganda. The Queen’s colleagues also working towards the development and evaluation of a carers’ toolkit for Ugandan carers. In a recent visit to Uganda, Lorna Montgomery and Charlene McShane jointly facilitated a workshop, with Makerere University and Clarke International University inviting key stakeholders to develop a prototype of the carers’ toolkit. The team hopes to continue its multi-stakeholder collaboration in order to develop future research protocols and projects as part of their continued work on the needs and challenges of informal caregiving in Uganda.
Our Northern Ireland Centre for Information on Language Teaching and Research (NICILT) supports language teaching and learning in Northern Ireland and is funded by the Department of Education.
In June, NICILT distributed an activity booklet to Key Stage 3 pupils in post-primary schools across Northern Ireland. The Summer Language Challenge gave pupils activities to practise their language skills and learn new vocabulary during their summer break. In total, 700 pupils from 30+ schools took part, earning a Bronze, Silver or Gold award based on the activities completed.
In 2022/23, NICILT is again delivering our Ambassadors project, with 28 undergraduate students registered to take part. In September, Ambassadors attended a training session and in October they visited their allocated post-primary schools and delivered talks on the value of learning languages. From November to January, Ambassadors will deliver four bespoke mentoring sessions to ‘on the fence’ pupils which will encourage them to choose a language for GCSE. After a rigorous application process, six schools from across Northern Ireland were selected to take part.
As part of our ‘Languages for Employability’ programme, NICILT will host two live webinars for Year 10 pupils, exploring how learning a language at GCSE level helps pupils build their skillset, makes them more employable and adds value to their personal and professional lives. Schools can register to take part via the NICILT website.
In February and March, NICILT will run four competitions for Key Stage 3 pupils. In February, Year 10 pupils will be invited to the Queen’s campus for Francofest and Hispanofest, where pupils use their language skills in prepared role plays marketing a product or a region of the French or Spanish speaking world. In March, NICILT will host spelling bees for pupils in their first year of study of German or Irish.
- Our Drugs and Alcohol Network (DARN) produced a number of research reports in the last six months, including the final reports for A Psychosocial Evaluation of The Alcohol Related Brain Injury Unit in Northern Ireland for the Belfast Trust Charitable fund, An Overview of Drug and Alcohol and Service Provision for the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission and a feasibility study of Wearable Devices for Opioid Overdose. The opioid overdose study laid the foundation for a bid to the Medical Research Council to roll out wearables across the UK in 2023.
- DARN colleagues co-authored a UK government research review on the availability of Naloxone in the UK, which is being used by the Home Office to shape drugs policy in the UK.
- DARN has taken the lead on national and international seminars and conference presentations, including Using Innovations in Technology to Enhance Practice with Drugs and Alcohol and Advancing the Co-Production of Wearables Technology. DARN colleagues are continuing their important work with a bid for Peace Plus funding in 2023.
- Anne Campbell hosted a webinar in September for the International Society of Substance Use Professionals (ISSUP). For more than 300 professionals from 67 countries, Anne outlined SSESW research conducted by herself, Davy Hayes and Sharon Millen in the form of a pilot study initiated by the Department of Justice in Northern Ireland in conjunction with Health and Social Care Trusts. It centres on Family Drug and Alcohol Courts (FDAC) in Northern Ireland, an alternative, problem-solving approach to care proceedings where problematic parental substance use is a key factor in initiating proceedings. Anne, who is Co-Chair of the UK Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, outlined the context, focus and process of the FDACs and the interventions and trauma-informed systemic family therapy involved. The webinar recording is on the ISSUP website.
A research seminar on 9 November, from our Centre for Children's Rights and our Disability Research Network, discussed The Emotional Wellbeing of Deaf Children and Youth: A Rights-based Framework. All children and young people have the right to the highest attainable standard of health that meets their needs (Article 24, UNCRC 1989). However, research shows deaf children can be vulnerable to poorer outcomes concerning emotional wellbeing compared to hearing children.
There are approximately 1,400 deaf children in Northern Ireland (CRIDE 2021). There is no reliable or recent data on their emotional wellbeing and little research on their experiences in accessing emotional wellbeing services and/or services they would find helpful. There are currently no specialist Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services for deaf children in Northern Ireland (NI).
The seminar included presentations on research and a pilot project addressing these gaps. SSESW colleagues Bronagh Byrne and Cate McNamee outlined research findings on the prevalence of psychological conditions and mechanisms shaping emotional wellbeing of deaf children and young people. Their analysis of the NI Youth Wellbeing Study showed deaf children have statistically significant higher prevalence of Depression, Anxiety, Generalised Anxiety Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Panic Disorder, and Separation Anxiety Disorder compared to hearing children. Almost 21% of deaf children reported having at least one condition compared to about 12% of hearing children. Findings from interviews and focus groups with deaf children and parents provided important insight on why they are at higher risk of emotional wellbeing issues. These factors are environmental, structural, social and cultural, interacting with a child’s deafness to produce barriers and challenges.
Based on these findings, the Northern Health and Social Care Trust piloted an intervention programme to support the emotional wellbeing of deaf children and youth. Holly Greer and Caroline Doherty headed the pilot and spoke at the seminar on progress and next steps. For more information see Emotional Wellbeing of Children and Young People.
School of SSESW colleagues involved with ARK, Northern Ireland’s Social Policy Hub hosted jointly by Queen’s University and Ulster University to increase accessibility and use of academic data and research, are gathering evidence to inform new legislation and policy interventions to tackle the ongoing issue of violence against women and girls.
In a first step, 16-year olds completing the 2022 Young Life and Times (YLT) survey were asked about their attitudes to and experience of different forms of violence. Adults aged 18 and over taking part in the Northern Ireland Life and Times (NILT) survey are asked questions about their attitudes to gender-based violence. YLT and NILT surveys are run by ARK. SSESW colleagues are also undertaking a further in-depth exploration of young women’s experiences of violence and youth workers’ experiences of supporting these young women.
The YLT survey results give a first insight into the scale of violence experiences among young people. 96% of females and 91% of 16-year old males reported having experienced at least one form of violence. Males (59%) were more likely than females (46%) to have experience of physical violence and verbal abuse or threats (69% and 60% respectively). However, all other types of violence were much more likely to be experienced by young women. For example, 75% of females reported experiencing street harassment, compared to 30% of males. 34% of young women had experienced belittling or controlling behaviour from a family member and/or boyfriend or girlfriend, compared to 18% of young men. Different types of sexual violence were also not only more likely to be experienced by girls, but experienced much more frequently.
The ongoing data collection aims to inform an action plan, supported by The Executive Office, The Department of Justice and The Department of Education, to address and reduce violence experiences among all young people, but especially young women.
In September, School of SSESW academic Ibrar Bhatt (Education) was involved in a number of visiting professor activities with Jilin University (China). The activities were planned as part of Ibrar’s Leverhulme Research Fellowship which examines the Chinese Hui community’s heritage literacy and which runs throughout this year. His engagements at Jilin University included three public guest lectures for the School of Foreign Studies on the following themes: Lecture 1: An introduction to the study of language and society; Lecture 2: Literacy as social practice - An ecological approach; and Lecture 3: Ecologies of knowledge production in contemporary universities.
The Jilin lecture series was informed by Ibrar’s current research on literacy studies and research writing practices in academia. For lectures two and three, Ibrar was joined by his PhD students, Pingping Xie and Xiajing Chen, who briefly co-presented with Ibrar in Chinese on matters related to their own PhD projects. Pingping shared her work on the online translanguaging practices of Chinese students and Xiajing provided her account of how Chinese academics respond to writing-related productivity mandates. Their accounts added practical relevance to the theories outlined by Ibrar and the Chinese audience responded well to the programme’s bilingual nature. An account of the lecture series is available at Jilin University School of Foreign Studies.
The lectures were very well attended, with academics and students from across many Chinese universities and from across the disciplines of applied linguistics, education and language education. Building on these international connections, Ibrar has developed a project with Dr Feng Wang at Jilin University which will bring some of his ideas on literacy research to a wider Chinese audience.
Read more about Ibrar's research on the research portal.
- Karola Dillenburger delivered a keynote at the Fourth Autism Symposium at Biruni University, Turkey. Her talk on ‘Adults with autism: How can applied behaviour analysis help?’ introduced issues such as relationships, interventions and lifelong care. She outlined how behaviour analysts can support autistic adults in an ethical and culturally sensitive way.
- Karola Dillenburger delivered a webinar on ‘The ethics of misrepresenting Applied Behaviour Analysis in public’ for the Association for the Advancement of Radical Behaviour Analysis in Italy. She spoke about the importance of advocacy and accuracy when reporting evidence from the science of behaviour analysis and the significance of close collaboration with autism self-advocates.
- Jason Majchrzak (PhD student) and supervisor Karola Dillenburger published ‘Supporting Young People on the Autism Spectrum: Analyzing the Effectiveness of Components of Habit Reversal Treatment’ in the International Journal of Autism and Related Disabilities. The paper reports data from a clinical file review in an Applied Behaviour Analysis clinic of a large hospital in the USA.
- Ioanna Konstantinidou (PhD student) and supervisors Karola Dillenburger and Devon Ramey published ‘Positive Behaviour Support (PBS): A systematic literature review of the effect of staff training and organisational behaviour management’ in the International Journal of Developmental Disabilities. PBS is an applied behaviour analysis-based model to address behaviours that challenge.
- Nichola Booth and Karola Dillenburger, with alumni Dr Catriona Gower and George Pickersgill (MScABA), co-authored two book chapters (Overview of applied behaviour analysis; Interventions to support adults with autism) for the National Pedagogical Institute of the Czech Republic.
- Karola Dillenburger was invited by German Accreditation Agency AQAS as International Expert on the validation panel of a Master’s programme in Applied Behaviour Analysis and Autism at the Universidad Autónoma de Chile. During her accreditation visit Karola met staff and students at the campuses in Temuco, Talca and Santiago de Chile.
School of SSESW academic Dina Belluigi (Education) was interviewed by the Times Higher Education, for an article titled ‘Indian academics ‘must choose caste or intellectual identity’ (October 2022). The article draws on a publication Dina co-authored earlier this year with Nandita Banerjee Dhawan (Jadavpur University, India) and Grace Ese-Osa Idahosa (University of Johannesburg, South Africa). It looks at the continuation of inequalities when it comes to academic staffing in Indian universities and is openly accessible at ‘There is a hell and heaven difference among faculties who are from quota and those who are non-quota’: under the veneer of the “New Middle Class” production of Indian public universities.
In addition, Dina has been elected to serve as a member of the Governing Council of the Society of Research in Higher Education (SRHE) from January 2023 for three years. The SRHE is a learned society for researchers of higher education. Based in the UK, it connects researchers across the globe. The society's aims include 'enhancing knowledge, informing policy, enhancing practice'.
You can read more about Dina’s teaching and research at Dina Belluigi reseach page.
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The Disability Research Network (DRN) has a new Postgraduate Research (PGR) Forum that aims to promote cross disciplinary learning and networking opportunities for the strong body of postgraduate research students in the School of SSESW who have an interest in disability issues. Launching on 24 November, the new PGR Forum will be a hub for sharing knowledge, collaborative engagement and support for postgraduate researchers in the field of disability studies. It will enable them to meet fellow researchers and share cross-disciplinary disability research experiences.
- The DRN is developing a new co-production group that will guide the strategic direction of the network and help to co-produce disability research projects. The group will be co-facilitated with Joanne Sansome, a disability activist, author and social researcher, and will include disabled people connected with the Barnardo’s Transition and Inclusion Service, the Mae Murray Foundation and Action for Deaf Youth. The first group meeting is planned for later in the year. If you would like to find out more about this group or you work on a disability research project and would like to connect with the group please contact Berni Kelly at b.r.kelly@qub.ac.uk.
- On 27 October, Professor Berni Kelly hosted an online seminar for INTRAC (International Research Network on Transitions to Adulthood from Care) with Dr JoAnne Lee and Dr Gil Gimm (George Mason University, Virginia) on homelessness and incarceration among disabled youth leaving care. Berni, who is Director of our Disability Research Network, is Chair of INTRAC’s thematic interest group on disability and leaving care. The session explored risk factors related to homelessness and incarceration and indicated supports that can enable more positive outcomes for disabled care leavers.
I am very pleased to bring you the Summer 2023 newsletter from the School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work (SSESW) at Queen’s University Belfast.
The newsletter highlights our teaching, research, impact and engagement with professionals and policy makers, all of which support our aim of making a social difference in both local and global settings. In particular, we aim to connect the Northern Ireland community with world leading experts and to share with the global audience the recognised excellence in Northern Ireland schools and agencies.
In this issue we are particularly delighted to showcase our work supporting the most vulnerable in society, and promoting peace in Northern Ireland and internationally.
Professor Daniel Muijs
Head of School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work
The 2022 Northern Ireland Life and Times (NILT) Survey shows 69% of respondents agree the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement remains the best basis for governing Northern Ireland (NI). However, 55% believe it needs some reform and 16% say it should be removed.
The data were analysed in the ‘Political attitudes in Northern Ireland 25 years after the Agreement’ report by SSESW colleagues Katy Hayward and Ben Rosher, a NINE PhD student.
An almost identical proportion (45%) of the three main communal blocs feel the Agreement remains the best basis for governing NI although it needs some small changes. However, 27% of unionists believe it is no longer/has never been a good basis for governing NI (compared to 13% of those saying they are ‘neither unionist nor nationalist’ and 8% of nationalists).
Younger people are the least confident about the 1998 Agreement, with 30% of under-35s answering ‘don’t know’ when asked their opinion on it.
As well as questions on political identity, constitutional futures and Brexit, the survey also tested for levels of trust in political actors involved in governing NI. See key findings or the full report.
Katy Hayward said: “It is a sign of the Agreement's success that the large majority think it remains the best basis for governing Northern Ireland. However, NILT also shows that there are consequences to a lack of fully-functioning institutions. Declining confidence in devolution, growing anticipation of Irish unification, and high levels of distrust in political actors reflect some of the post-Brexit flux experienced in Northern Ireland.”
NILT is coordinated by SSESW colleagues Paula Devine and Martina McKnight. It is a key resource within ARK, a joint initiative between Queen’s University Belfast and Ulster University. Full NILT results were published on 1 June 2023.
I am a Research Fellow with expertise in youth violence that focusses on capturing how young people experience different forms of violence, why victims are more likely than non-victims to engage in violence themselves and, importantly, evaluating responses that seek to reduce violence and the harms to which it contributes.
This interest began early and was shaped by my own experiences, observations and reflections. Growing up in an area affected by different types of violence I was struck, even as a teenager, as to how people often accept things. Over time, this curiosity led to me to volunteer and then to work professionally in the community sector, specialising in practices with young men, violence prevention and youth justice. Over fourteen years, I led a number of programmes across several regional non-governmental organizations. That combined experience convinced me that we had much to learn about the needs and experiences of some of the most vulnerable young people, and the pathways that lead them into the justice system. In my own practice, I became frustrated with the lack of reliable evidence feeding into intervention development and also the lack of evidence emerging out of the practice. This led me back into academia as a Fellow in 2016. I strongly believe that alongside our non-academic colleagues we can make a real difference in real people’s lives through policy and practice relevant research.
My research has informed: the work of the Tackling Paramilitarism, Criminality and Organised Crime Programme; the implementation of targeted youth provision by the Education Authority for Northern Ireland (EANI); cross-departmental work around Child Criminal Exploitation; and specialist youth support hubs for victims of violence. It is also contributing to how funders such as Children in Need engage with young people as part of their violence reduction commissioning.
I am currently leading a portfolio of projects including an action research programme funded by the Department of Justice, a proof of concept study funded by Children in Need and a North/South programme in the area of youth crime with our partners at the University of Limerick. I am also in the process of scaling up a co-produced violence prevention model for young men funded by EANI.
A new research report called ‘From Contextual to Criminal Harm: Young People’s Perceptions and Experiences of Child Criminal Exploitation (CCE) in Northern Ireland (NI)’ was launched in March. The study was led by Colm Walsh (SSESW), commissioned by the Department of Justice and the Department of Health, and was the first to explore explicitly the concept and mechanisms of CCE in the Northern Ireland context.
The study was carried out with 44 young people across the region. At the launch, Head of the School of SSESW Daniel Muijs outlined how timely research can contribute a positive social impact.
The research found that young people were exposed to a range of harms in the home, in schools and in their communities, leaving some more vulnerable to criminal exploitation.
Other findings include:
- Paramilitarism was intimately connected to child criminal exploitation.
- A number of young people had been actively groomed to engage in criminality over a prolonged period of time.
- Others were engaged in a more agile way, exploited for a particular purpose and for a specific period of time.
Colm Walsh commented: “This is an important but sobering study documenting the perceptions and experiences of child criminal exploitation. Their voices illustrate the ways that some children and young people are being failed by a range of statutory agencies and how these missed opportunities to protect provide others with opportunities to exploit for their own criminal gain.”
Adele Brown (DOJ) said: “It shows how, a generation on from the peace agreements, young people in Northern Ireland are still being exploited and manipulated by paramilitaries and criminals.”
The event was closed by Richard Pengelly (DOJ) who confirmed that the study findings will directly affect how CCE is defined and how services will now respond.
As the UNESCO Chair at Queen’s University, School of SSESW academic Joanne Hughes accepted an invitation to provide expert support to a UK delegation at UNESCO. The delegation is contributing to the intergovernmental special committee meeting on the revised 1974 Recommendation concerning Education for International Understanding, Co-operation and Peace and Education relating to Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
Joanne is a globally recognised expert in education in divided societies, inequalities in education and inter-group relations. She is Director of our Centre for Shared Education. Joanne has led more than 20 research projects on these themes for funders such as UNICEF, the British Council, Nuffield, Atlantic Philanthropies and the Economic and Social Research Council. She has contributed her expertise to development of shared education in international settings including Israel and states in south east Europe.
Joanne is joined in leading this important international input to UNESCO discussions by SSESW colleague James Nelson (Education) who specialises in teacher education and the interface between religion and education. James will represent the SSESW team during the intergovernmental negotiations in Paris on 30 May-2 June.
The revision of the Recommendation aims to revive and update the global consensus around the role of education in shaping a more just, sustainable, healthy and peaceful future for all learners.
A research study by our Centre for Children’s Rights has found that autistic young people’s rights were undermined across education, development, health, play, rest and leisure during the COVID-19 pandemic. The research, led by Bronagh Byrne and Gillian O’Hagan, is the first published study to directly involve autistic children as research advisors and participants in a rights-based study relating to the pandemic.
Working with nine autistic young people (aged 11-18) across Northern Ireland, the research team used Photovoice, requiring only a basic knowledge of photography using mobile phones, which the young people used to document their lives through pictures over a six-week period during lockdown.
Key findings include:
- Participants worried about what was going to happen and how long the pandemic would last. They reported feeling ‘low’, ‘depressed’ and ‘isolated’ during lockdown.
- They consistently referred to the stress and pressure of home-schooling and that having to engage with new educational platforms across multiple subjects could be overwhelming at times.
- Young people in the study drew on existing hobbies or developed new hobbies as a coping strategy during lockdown. This provided distraction, routine and calmness, particularly in light of the removal of the key support networks they usually relied on.
- Time spent outdoors in nature became an important way of managing stress during lockdown.
- However, they felt that schools did not always acknowledge the importance of being outdoors and overloaded their days with schoolwork, leaving little time for minding their mental health.
- The autistic young people in the study shared a common goal to illuminate the challenges they faced during this time so that should a future crisis or emergency occur, these challenges, as triggered by government responses, could be taken into consideration.
The report is at ‘Children's lives and rights under lockdown: A Northern Irish perspective by autistic young people'.
Our Disability Research Network (DRN) worked last year with Barnardo’s, the Mae Murray Foundation and Action for Deaf Youth to establish a co-production group that will facilitate collaboration between DRN researchers and disabled young people to facilitate their meaningful involvement in research, from identifying priority research issues through to impact activities.
The group will also assist with funding applications that more authentically reflect the core issues affecting the lives of disabled young people and extend the use of creative and participatory disability research methods.
The DRN Co-production group met in person for the first time in January in The Cube at the new Queen’s University Students’ Union building. The meeting was co-facilitated by disability activist Joanne Sansome and School of SSESW academics Berni Kelly and Bronagh Byrne. The eight disabled young people who attended the meeting were Oran, Sean, Ross, Erin, Jeffrey, Leah, Kellie and Caitlin. They brought a range of different perspectives and explored challenges relating to social exclusion, education, transition to adulthood and transport.
Group members are excited to get involved in research at Queen’s and agreed co-production meant that: “Disabled people are partners in research who use their experience to inform research that can make a difference to the lives of disabled people.”
The group explored how they might get involved in co-producing disability research at Queen’s University. Ideas generated on the day included: sharing ideas on hot topics; sharing experiences on a chosen theme; participating in research training; advising on research design; becoming a researcher; developing accessible research outputs; and co-delivering research presentations.
The DRN Co-production Group will meet again soon to take these ideas to the next stage. New members would be very welcome so, if you would like to get involved, please email Professor Berni Kelly at b.r.kelly@qub.ac.uk.
Our new MSc Sociology and Global Inequality focuses on the most important issues across the world today: inequality contributes to religious fundamentalisms and populist movements and drives civil wars and conflicts that reshape international relations. Inequality also generates demands for gender and racial equality and LGBTQ+ rights, and prompts calls for governments to deal with increasing levels of socioeconomic inequality.
As a result, inequality contributes to new cultural expressions and political activism, often beyond the boundaries of nation-states.
Our Sociology team is very excited to launch this brand new Master’s programme at Queen’s University in September 2024. It has a global perspective, drawing on the research expertise of award-winning staff, whose research addresses inequalities through a broad range of approaches and different regions of the world.
Students will approach inequalities through a wide range of topics such as emotions, work and organisations, social conflict and divisions, extremism, religion, social movements, radical politics, disability, gender, race, migration and citizenship. Through cross-national comparative perspectives, students will explore the global dimensions of inequality as well as interconnections between the local and the global.
Through a vibrant intellectual environment, the academic team delivering the MSc Sociology and Global Inequality will strive to empower students to develop practical and intellectual capacities that are relevant to a wide range of professional contexts. Our Sociology colleagues look forward to welcoming the first cohort of students to this new postgraduate course!
Further information is available on the Queen's University Course Finder from mid-September 2023.
Members of our Drugs and Alcohol Network (DARN) presented at The Public Health Institute Drug Related Deaths Conference online in March. Fourteen speakers gave presentations and hosted discussions across five sessions. Over 700 people attended online, presented and contributed. Presentations are available at DRD conference - IMS Online (ljmu.ac.uk) and DARN input is at 1h 37m in the recording.
DARN produced the final report Overview of Drug and Alcohol and Service Provision for the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (NIHRC), to be released in July 2023. It outlines the strategic context of substance use in Northern Ireland with a focus on the new substance use strategy, ‘Preventing Harm, Empowering Recovery 2021-2031’. The report gave an overview of current drug and alcohol trends, including drug and alcohol deaths, treatment populations, current delivery of service provision and commissioning of services. In addition, DARN colleagues presented research findings to the NIHRC committee, the Department of Health and the Public Health Agency, outlining views on current service provision from key stakeholders, managers and those who use substances and highlighted any existing gaps in current alcohol and drugs provision.
DARN was involved in a report on drug use and young people for the UK Home Office. The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) agreed in 2019 to begin a self-commissioned workstream investigating young people’s drug use.
Anne Campbell contributed to the international webinar Drug Policy in the UK: A Matter of Crime or Health | International Society of Substance Use Professionals (issup.net), attended online by 378 professionals from 73 countries.
Anne Campbell and Orfhlaith Campbell presented at the Northern Ireland Drug & Alcohol Alliance conference in Belfast in March on the legalization of Cannabis and Medical Cannabis.
Our Centre for Children’s Rights (CCR) collaborated with Terre des hommes Foundation, the leading Swiss organisation for children’s aid, in working with internally displaced Ukrainian children to co-design a survey that captures children’s experiences of their rights during the current war in Ukraine.
The CCR team, Michelle Templeton (Project Lead), Laura Lundy, Bronagh Byrne, Katrina Lloyd and PhD students Evie Heard and Lucy Holland, applied the Centre’s internationally renowned child's rights-based participation model (the Lundy Model developed by CCR Co-Director Laura Lundy) to create a ‘child-friendly’ survey for Ukrainian children. It included questions about children’s rights during the war in Ukraine and how these have been impacted, including their right to health care, standard of living, education, play, safety and to have their views taken seriously.
The project team reached out to organisations working with Ukrainian children and families, currently living in Ukraine or in another country, to encourage Ukrainian children aged between 8 and 17 years to participate in the anonymous survey by late March.
Governments in Ukraine and host countries are required to ensure that children’s views are taken into account and communicated quickly to those who are making important decisions about the children (UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 12). The results of the survey will not only increase understanding of children’s lived experiences of their rights during the current war, but also what works and what does not, from their perspective, in terms of their education, feelings of safety, social lives and health. The survey outcomes will also highlight the ways in which children demonstrate agency, resilience and creativity when under these new and difficult circumstances, which may inform decisions taken that affect their lives now and in the future.
I am a Professor of Social Work in Palliative Care and Programme Director for the new Postgraduate Diploma in Palliative Care for social workers, which commences in September 2023. My interest in palliative care and bereavement started in my twenties when I was a student social worker with older people.
Around that time, some elderly relatives were diagnosed with cancer and stayed with us during their radiotherapy treatment. When a close friend, who was a young mum, died from cancer I had so many questions about the illness, and I wanted to know more about how to support individuals living with a life-limiting condition and their families. I subsequently gained a reputation within my extended family of being comfortable around people receiving end-of-life care and felt very privileged to help them reflect on their lives, put their affairs in order and say goodbye.
This experience led me to working as a Social Worker in the community with adults and in Marie Curie hospice, specialising in palliative and end-of-life care and bereavement. When seconded to a research post within Marie Curie, I conducted studies around end-of-life care decision-making, bereavement needs assessment, quality of life, complementary therapy and clinical drug trials.
Since joining Queen’s University, I have been actively involved in teaching social work students about palliative care and bereavement and enabling them to develop the relevant interpersonal skills to feel comfortable with death, dying and bereavement, regardless of the cause. I have been involved in several knowledge exchange projects, which included working visits to Bolivia, Kenya and Australia. Currently, I am chairing the Northern Ireland Association of Palliative Care Social Work Forum, the European Association of Palliative Care Social Work Task Force, and the World Hospice and Palliative Care Social Work research network, which have education, research, policy and practice components. I am involved in projects currently exploring palliative care in prisons, and deaths in prison custody, which I hope will inform policy and practice.
Last year, I worked alongside colleagues across Ireland, the UK and Europe to develop our part-time, online Postgraduate Diploma in Palliative Care for social workers, which is now open for applications via Queen’s University.
Our new online, part-time Postgraduate Diploma in Palliative Care starts at Queen's University Belfast in September 2023. The School of SSESW developed this course to address the training needs of social workers involved in delivering care to people living with life-limiting or life-threatening illness and in supporting informal caregivers both pre- and post- bereavement.
The course consists of six modules, taught online over two years in a part-time format. It has been designed to an international standard and is suitable for social workers employed across a range of settings in adult services. The curriculum content and assessments are aligned with the Northern Ireland Social Care Council Professionals in Practice requirements, the Health Service Executive Palliative Care Competence Framework (Social Work) and the European Association of Palliative Care core competencies for palliative care social work in Europe.
Course lecturers and facilitators are experts from a range of backgrounds including palliative care, social work, ethics, cognitive behaviour therapy, systemic family practice and leadership. The Programme Director, Professor Audrey Roulston, has over 25 years’ experience of palliative care and bereavement needs assessment through practice, leadership, research and teaching.
A unique aspect of this programme is that lectures, workshops, and tutorials will be delivered online. Assessment will promote opportunities for critical reflection on practice, regardless of participants’ levels of experience and expertise. The online delivery and part-time format are designed to enable social workers across different countries, service user groups and settings to attend this training.
For further information, including admissions criteria and how to apply, please see Palliative Care on Course Finder. The closing date for applications was Friday 16 June 2023 at 4pm.
In February, I travelled to India with colleagues from the University's International Office to engage with school counsellors, principals and vice-principals in post-primary schools across New Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. School counsellors, in particular, play an important role in providing career advice for pupils and their families about undergraduate international studies and this was a great opportunity to talk to them about undergraduate study at Queen’s University Belfast.
As a means of engagement, we offered leadership development training for approximately 100 counsellors and school leaders, focussing on the role leaders play in promoting change and improvement in schools. As the Director of the MSc Educational Leadership Programme at the School of SSESW, I adapted existing course materials and developed a bespoke workshop which I delivered in the three cities over three days. Each event culminated in high tea together and an award ceremony where attendees received a certificate of participation from Queen’s University Belfast.
I was privileged to talk with many counsellors and school leaders at each workshop and it was clear that professional development and leadership training are priorities for them. They also talked about the value of developing a professional network between schools and how the workshop event helped to develop a leadership network within and across the cities.
For me, the trip was a wonderfully affirming professional experience and provided opportunities to develop new international connections to school leaders in India. I was struck by the effort and dedication of the International Team at Queen’s led by Lynsey Noble and in particular, the team working in India led by Karan Menon and Neeta Tyagi.
Dr Gavin Duffy
The annual Social Work Careers Event made a welcome in-person return to campus this semester, just before final year students embarked on their last placement. A fantastic turnout of students from our Social Work programme joined the event.
Speakers covered a range of relevant topics. A representative from the Northern Ireland Social Care Council talked about the Assessed Year in Employment (AYE) for graduates in their first year working as social workers. Anne Campbell (SSESW) gave an overview of our post-qualifying training. Carmel McManus outlined the University’s Careers Service and social work recruitment in the voluntary sector. Lee Wilson talked about recruitment and interviews in the Health and Social Care Trusts.
Students grabbed a slice of pizza as they walked around information stands and met employers representing the statutory and voluntary sectors. Students welcomed the opportunity to ask employers questions and gain a better understanding of social work employment. The event was a fantastic success, with students gaining knowledge on how to apply successfully for a post in social work, undertake their AYE and take advantage of post-qualifying learning.
Mental health advocate Niamh Brownlee, author of Struggling to Breathe, visited our Social Work undergraduate students on the Research, Policy and Practice module. In a moving session, she outlined her own experiences with mental illness, which ultimately led to her being hospitalised. Niamh spoke about her interactions with social workers and the key things our social work trainees should look out for when someone is unwell.
Niamh read the students excerpts from Struggling to Breathe, about her experiences of being detained in hospital, and gave a powerful message about the importance of evidence-based treatments in her recovery. She also visited our Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) postgraduate programme where she described her own positive experiences of CBT treatment over the years.
Academic Michelle Butler led the very successful School of SSESW engagement with a new University initiative which saw a number of SSESW undergraduates across social sciences and social work obtain Certificates of Completion in Cyber Security Awareness Training. This new Queen’s initiative is led by Dr Sandra Scott-Hayward, Director of its Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Education (ACE-CSE).
In 2021, Queen’s University Belfast became one of the first such centres in the UK when it was awarded silver recognition by The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) under its ACE-CSE programme by demonstrating first-rate cyber security education and promoting cyber skills across the University. Key to the Centre’s work is enhancing students’ cyber security skills. For this reason, ACE-CSE developed new online training in cyber security awareness training which is freely accessible to Queen’s students via the University’s student learning environment. Participants have found it very interesting and insightful.
The ACE-CSE programme was developed by NCSC and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to develop an influential and growing community of cyber security educators, to shape and support cyber security education and to engage with industry, government, educators and students. Queen’s University has made significant investment in staff, infrastructure, studentships and scholarships to support education and research in cyber security.
The Queen’s University ACE-CSE gives students opportunities to learn good cyber security practices that will benefit them in their student, work and social lives. Northern Ireland has an ambitious target of growing the number of cyber security professionals in the region to 5,000 by 2030, while the UK Government seeks to promote cyber security. The work of ACE-CSE will enhance the cyber security knowledge of all Queen’s students and support the University’s efforts in continuing to build a strong pipeline of highly skilled graduates.
In March we welcomed Dr Eva Kane (pictured), University of Stockholm, as a visiting scholar at the Centre for Children’s Rights (CCR). Eva is an expert on Swedish Educare. During her visit, Eva and CCR Co-Director Laura Lundy presented on the topic ‘Play, Education and Voice: Missed, Misrepresented and Misunderstood.’
On 14 March, we were delighted to welcome the Australian National Children’s Commissioner and the Icelandic Children’s Commissioner, along with her staff, for a discussion with Centre members on work to progress children's rights and youth justice in Australia, Iceland and Northern Ireland. The event was attended by colleagues from Include Youth and the Children’s Law Centre as well as Koulla Yiasouma, the former Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People.
The Centre is hosting Marta Basile who is a visiting doctoral student in Political Sciences at the University of Catania, Italy. Her PhD involves a comparative and qualitative study on the ‘Best Interests of the Child’ in Italy and Northern Ireland with a particular focus on the sentencing of young people in the youth justice system.
On 29 March, Laura Lundy was a keynote speaker at a ‘Leading Lundy’ event in Manchester. The Lundy Network is a coalition of statutory and voluntary organisations who use the Lundy model of child participation, based on the key concepts of Space, Voice, Audience and Influence, which has been adopted globally by organisations, agencies and governments to inform their understanding of children’s participation. The network is led by the Anna Freud Centre, The National Youth Agency, Youth Focus North West, the Royal College of Paediatricians and Barnardo’s UK. The sold out Manchester event included attendees from many city and county councils, UNICEF UK and the National Lottery Fund.
In February, our Centre for Children’s Rights (Corr, Holland, McKinstry) launched the report ‘A Place to Call Home: A rights based-approach to understanding the lived experience of children and families facing homelessness or housing insecurity’. The research, commissioned by the Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People (NICCY), sought to increase understanding of the lived experience of children and families facing homelessness and housing insecurity, analysed using a framework informed by rights instruments and standards.
Participants (parents, children, young people) spoke of the fragility of their living situation, regardless of accommodation type. They reported spending a number of years in temporary accommodation and described the negative impact of constant insecurity. Many spoke of inadequacies, including cramped, cold and uninhabitable conditions as well as living in unsafe areas and under threat of eviction. For many, the right “to live somewhere in security, peace and dignity” (UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 1991) was breached.
The impact of homelessness and housing insecurity was far greater than a lack of stable housing, also impacting on children’s ability to enjoy rights related to family life, access to and experiences of education, physical and mental health, play and leisure opportunities, ability to maintain friendships and social networks and being able to practice their faith.
Based on research findings, NICCY developed recommendations related to housing provision, child rights impact assessments and adequate standards of temporary accommodation. In response to the report, the Chief Executive of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIHE), for the first time, called for the widening of NIHE’s statutory obligations towards prevention of homelessness:
“The report shines a light on the experiences of children and families in our communities and reinforces the importance of focusing on the prevention of homelessness to avoid reliance on temporary accommodation and solutions”.
In January, we were delighted to host successfully completing students from our postgraduate Social Work programmes at a special presentation ceremony in the Great Hall at Queen’s University. The event was hosted by Head of SSESW, Professor Daniel Muijs, and Dr Anne Campbell and included guest speakers from the health and social care sector.
The students’ academic achievement alongside managing their busy professional roles was warmly acknowledged by guest speakers Peter Toogood (Deputy Secretary, Social Care Policy at the Department of Health) and Kevin Bailey (Regional Lead for Drugs and Alcohol at the Public Health Agency). The certificate and diploma parchments were then presented to students by Peter Toogood.
Invited students came from programmes in Mental Health and Mental Capacity Law, Substance Use and Substance Use Disorders, Systemic Practice and Family Therapy, Cognitive Behavioural Practice and Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapy. After the ceremony, they had opportunities to catch up with fellow students and staff over a light lunch.
If you work in Health and Social Care and are interested in professional development in any of these areas, please check out the SSESW website for more information on the pathways available.
The new book Women in Behaviour Science: Observations on Life Inside and Outside the Academy (Routledge) showcases the perspectives of prominent female behaviour scientists who have held successful careers in academia. Included is an invited chapter by Karola Dillenburger, Director of CBA, in which she reflects on more than 30 years of her academic career promoting pro-sociality and compassion in competitive environments.
Devon Ramey was interviewed on Behavior Analysis in Practice – The Podcast (BAPcast), where she discussed her article ‘Defining and Measuring Indices of Happiness and Unhappiness in Children Diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder’. The podcast highlights the work of selected authors to help narrow the research-practice gap.
An innovative new approach to journal publications was pioneered by Karola Dillenburger with Professor Mickey Keenan (Ulster University). The paper entitled ‘Hidden in Plain Sight’, in BF Skinner Foundation’s Operants, shows two QR codes access multimedia presentations. See also The Scientific Image in Behaviour Analysis.
Karola’s global reputation in relation to professional recognition of behaviour analysts led to the invitation by Germany’s Agency for Quality Assurance through Accreditation of Study Programmes (AQAS) as international expert for accrediting the MScABA and Autism Assessment and Interventions at the Universidad Autónoma de Chile in Santiago de Chile, South America.
Karola is leading a group of representatives from 22 countries to support professional recognition of behaviour analysts. In the UK, the Professional Standards Authority’s approval of the UK Society for Behaviour Analysis register means that the profession now is accredited nationally. This enhances service user protection and ensures that they receive high quality ethical interventions.
The CBA Webinar Series continues successfully to offer monthly talks by eminent international colleagues, such as Dr Francescs degli Espinosa and Dr Maithri Sivaraman. Recordings of talks can be accessed at CBA Resources. Webinars are announced on Facebook.
The Irish Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs marked the publication of Considering Grace: Presbyterians and the Troubles (Merrion Press) by School of SSESW academic Gladys Ganiel with a special event in March at its headquarters in Iveagh House, Dublin.
Considering Grace records the deeply moving stories of 120 ordinary people’s experiences of the Troubles, exploring how faith shaped their responses to violence and its aftermath. Presbyterian ministers, victims, members of the security forces, emergency responders, healthcare workers and ‘critical friends’ of the Presbyterian tradition feature in its pages. It is the first book to capture such a full range of experiences of the Troubles of people from a Protestant background. See Considering Grace for more information or to purchase.
Considering Grace was co-written by Gladys Ganiel, Professor in the Sociology of Religion in SSESW, and Dr Jamie Yohanis, a post-doctoral researcher on the project. Jamie (pictured right) previously completed his PhD in Education at the School of SSESW. He spoke at the Dublin event on behalf of Gladys Ganiel.
The research on which the book is based was commissioned by the Presbyterian Church in Ireland and supported by the Department of Foreign Affairs’ Reconciliation Fund.
Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin TD welcomed the event and said: “I am very pleased that my Department is co-hosting this event with the Presbyterian Church. Churches and religious communities across the island are key partners on our shared journey of peace and reconciliation.”
Mr Martin continued: “Considering Grace is an important contribution to our understanding of a dark period in our collective past. My Department, through the Reconciliation Fund, is proud to support the Presbyterian Church’s important work advancing understanding and reconciliation on this island, including the complex but vitally important question of how we address the legacy of the past.”
Centre members Ian Collen, Leanne Henderson, Minchen Liu, Centre Director Aisling O’Boyle and SSESW colleague Jennifer Roberts were part of a unique research project which investigated the trends in languages provision in the UK Further Education (FE) sector over the past 20 years.
Funded by the British Academy and led by Ian Collen, the research sought to understand the extent of the provision and uptake of languages (other than English and Welsh) in the UK FE sector. The systematic review, secondary data analysis and primary research with FE lecturers, students and other stakeholders evidence for the first time the significant lack of research on languages provision in FE over the last 20 years.
The voices of language learners and teachers in UK Further Education are rarely heard in an arena where research is almost exclusively focused on secondary and higher education. In addition, the research identified that there are a considerable number of FE colleges with no provision for languages and learning opportunities are not integrated into core programmes and vocational qualifications.
The research team presented their findings to a joint meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Groups for Further Education and Languages (APPG) in the Houses of Parliament in London in January. The discussants and parliamentarians at the joint APPG welcomed the report and its findings as a landmark study for language education in the UK Further Education sector, as reported in a wide range of national media channels.
With a number of recommendations made available through a policy briefing, the research team will continue to engage with stakeholders and the British Academy to take these forward. The report is at Languages Provision in UK Further Education.
https://www.qub.ac.uk/research-centres/CentreforLanguageEducationResearch/
The Undergraduate Social Work Citizenship Awards were introduced this year to recognise students making a significant impact as a positive student citizen, a supportive member of the cohort or an inspiring influence on their class/year. The winners were presented with their awards in April.
Level 1 student Anna Kirkwood was nominated for her outstanding achievement in being appointed a patient representative with the Royal College of Psychiatry as a member of the Faculty for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Her role involves gathering views from service users and carers to help improve mental health services for young people. Anna said: 'My personal challenges mean this award is something 16-year-old me could only dream of. Hard work pays off. If you are struggling, remember that hope is real and better days are coming.'
Level 2 student Emma McAlister was nominated for her outstanding contribution to developing highly innovative practice. During her first social work placement, Emma took part in a successful trial of the Peer Learning Bubble Model with fellow students from Ulster University. She was invited to present on this model by the Northern Ireland Social Care Council as part of their event on digital tools in social work education. Emma said: ‘I was extremely honoured to receive the award. It has given me a great boost going into the final year of my social work degree.’
Level 3 student Ioan Racasan was nominated for his commitment to Social Work at Queen’s. He has been involved in a variety of activities including volunteering for recruitment events, being a peer mentor and working on the Social Sciences Student Journal. With others, Ioan organised the first, and very successful, Social Work student conference at Queen’s University in October 2022. Ioan commented: ‘I am grateful for this recognition of my work. Winning this award is a result of inspiration from my School of SSESW teaching staff, from whom I have learned so much.’
The ARK Ageing Programme, based in the School of SSESW, explores the many aspects of ageing. SSESW lecturer Gemma Carney (Social Policy) is a member of the ARK Ageing Programme and also belongs to the Framing Ageing network. It brings together an international group of geriatricians, gerontologists, humanities researchers, social scientists and practitioners.
In December 2022, the ARK Ageing Programme and the Science and Culture Research Group at Queen’s hosted Framing Ageing’s first Early Career Researcher Symposium.
In her keynote address The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, Hannah Zeilig (University of the Arts, London) reflected that the most difficult questions require us to cross disciplinary boundaries. She described how her work on dementia has led her across many disciplines, such as music, dance and neuroscience.
Early career researchers from as far afield as Slovakia and South Korea presented papers on a myriad of issues, including end of life decision-making, loneliness, independent living, grandparent involvement in childcare, spirituality, music, theatre and literature. Discussion on papers was facilitated by Des O’Neill, a medical gerontologist at Trinity College Dublin, as well as cultural gerontologist Gemma Carney, historian and material culture specialist Leonie Hannan and liberal arts lecturer Sophie Cooper, all from Queen’s University.
Gemma noted that working as a researcher on ageing societies can sometimes get dispiriting, including: the 30 year ‘crisis’ in social care; massive casualties of the COVID-19 pandemic; and widespread ageism in the media. However, research on ageing is a vibrant, multi-disciplinary field of enquiry, and the Frame Ageing network is a good example of this. The event provided opportunities to build connections between researchers for the future, and was especially important as the first face-to-face event in several years for many of the participants.
For more information on the conference or the network see Framing Ageing network.
In his new book Aum Shinrikyo and religious terrorism in Japanese collective memory, SSESW academic Rin Ushiyama explores how the Aum Affair developed as a 'cultural trauma' in Japan following the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin attack. The book reveals the multiple clashing narratives over the causes of Aum's violence, the efficacy of 'brainwashing' and 'mind control', and whether capital punishment is justified.
It shows that although cultural trauma construction requires the use of moral binaries such as 'good vs. evil', 'pure vs. impure', and 'sacred vs. profane', the entrenchment of binaries can hinder reconciliation.
Rin Ushiyama is a cultural and political sociologist interested in contested memories of violence, including war, terrorism and colonialism. His latest research investigates historical denial in the context of contemporary Japan and East Asia. He has published in numerous journals on topics such as memory studies, social theory and sociology of religion.
SSESW academic Ulrike M Vieten is a historical and political sociologist, with a research focus on the construction and shifts of racialised group boundaries, particularly in Europe. She has published a new book (with Scott Poynting, Queensland University of Technology) entitled Normalization of the Global Far Right; Pandemic Disruption? Its underlying argument is that the boundary between extremist racist perspectives and ‘normal’ entitlement discourses of liberal majorities is blurred.
Ulrike analysed discourses on European cosmopolitanism before carrying out comparative studies on the multi-layered belonging and identities of minority EU citizens and on experiences of asylum seekers and refugees in Northern Ireland. She publishes frequently on gender and racist far right populism and regularly blogs on contemporary political debates. Ulrike takes inspiration from political activism of black and minority scholars across the globe. She is a member of the UK academic-activist group Social Scientists Against the Hostile Environment.
The 5th Conference from our Centre for Behaviour Analysis (CBA), entitled Applied Behaviour Analysis: Meaningful inclusion in a changing world, took place in December. It was led by School of SSESW academic Katerina Dounavi (Scientific Committee chair and Deputy Director of CBA) with support from SSESW colleagues Karola Dillenburger, Nichola Booth and Devon Ramey. Invited speakers included international authorities and experts by experience from the autism community.
Jane McCready, former UK Society for Behaviour Analysis Board Member, narrated her son’s story of accessing services based on the science of applied behaviour analysis. Now 19 years old, Johnny gained key life skills that enable him to live a better life and access fun, meaningful activities.
Professor Patrick Friman, University of Nebraska, outlined how behaviour analysis can be used across multiple domains to achieve better quality of life, including increasing happiness in relationships. Dr Matthew Brodhead, Michigan State University, discussed using a behavioural systems analysis to promote ethical behaviour. Armando Bernal, an autistic adult and Board Certified Behaviour Analyst, described the complexities of participating in social experiences throughout his life and professional career, and how professionals can promote independence and self-advocacy in service users.
Participants also heard from CBA students and staff on topics such as anxiety, safeguarding, socio-communicative behaviours in the context of play, combining hand gesture cues with Applied Behaviour Analysis principles to improve speech intelligibility and comparing the efficacy of an asynchronous online learning platform and telehealth (synchronous) training for ABA practitioners.
Finally, the audience learned about behaviour analytic research with various populations, from individuals with autism to those with Alzheimer's Disease, as well as environmental issues and energy efficiency. Papers were delivered by speakers from the UK, Ireland, Italy, India, Poland and the United Arab Emirates.
Videos of conference presentations are available on the Centre for Behaviour Analysis Resources page.
Our Shared Education expert academics Tony Gallagher and Joanne Hughes were delighted to attend the Collaboration and Sharing in Education (CASE) Project event in February at Queen’s University to celebrate the significant progress achieved in mainstreaming Shared Education in schools and the societal, educational and economic benefits it brings.
To date, the CASE project has supported almost 400 schools in delivering shared education activities to over 140k students in primary and post-primary schools through cross-sector and cross-border partnerships. The CASE event highlighted key findings from the impact evaluation of five years of activity through ‘Sharing from the Start’ and ‘Collaboration Through Sharing in Education’ (CASE) and launched a series of case studies.
Tony Gallagher commented: ‘It is a little staggering to think that Shared Education has become such a fundamental part of the educational landscape in Northern Ireland. From modest beginnings, with the initial pilot programme with 12 schools in 2007, we are now celebrating hundreds of Shared Education Partnerships across Northern Ireland. Everyone at Queen’s is proud of the role we have played in helping to develop this model, locally and internationally. We look forward to seeing the culture of collaboration that lies at its heart play an even deeper role in schools in future.’
Joanne Hughes commented on taking local expertise to a wider audience: ‘The Shared Education team at Queen's has worked extensively in other conflict and transitioning societies to explore the potential for sharing and collaboration in education to promote intergroup relations and better educational outcomes for all children. Adapted versions of the Northern Ireland Shared Education model have now been piloted or are in development in places like Israel and some Balkan States, and it has been a privilege to engage with colleagues nationally and internationally to extend and apply the learning from shared education in Northern Ireland.’
Dr Federica Ferrieri, language tutor and coordinator of engaged research projects in our Open Learning Programme, has been awarded Knight of the Order of the Star of Italy, a prestigious Italian honour recognizing outstanding service in the promotion of friendly relations and cooperation between Italy and other countries.
As Honorary Italian Consul for Northern Ireland since 2016, Federica has organised a wide range of events to promote understanding between cultures. As part of our Open Learning team, she was central in designing and delivering an online intercultural module for the Queen’s University Professional Skills Certificate and the international partnership project ‘Images of Incoming: Exploring Inclusion and Exclusion with Migrant Women in Northern Ireland and Canada’.
The School of SSESW is the Queen’s University partner for the Images of Incoming programme, which has involved partnerships with University of the Fraser Valley, British Columbia, and University of Atypical (Arts and Disability Network). Working with SSESW academic Tess Maginess, outputs to date have included a website, an exhibition, a documentary, an academic chapter in Postdigital Research, edited by Alison MacKenzie (SSESW) and colleagues, and two conference presentations.
Federica said: “It has been my privilege to work with so many communities here in Northern Ireland to promote greater understanding of Italian culture and, indeed, to foster connections between a wide range of cultures here in Northern Ireland. Working at Queen’s has provided a great support structure for engaging with many communities and sectors in fulfillment of the University’s aim of promoting social and civic responsibility and engaging in real world issues, including the challenges facing migrant people.”
Federica Ferrieri provides consular advice and guidance to some 2500 Italians in Northern Ireland. In addition to her teaching, she is an author, life coach and Restorative Justice practitioner.
In March, Social Work academic Joe Duffy (front row, third from right) participated in a special event with students on the Belmont University (Nashville, USA) Study Abroad programme who are studying at Queen’s University this academic year.
The students were invited to attend a private viewing of the film Belfast in the Queen’s Film Theatre, accompanied by Belmont academic Professor Amy Hodges Hamilton (front row, second from right). The screening was followed by a conversation and question and answer session about the impact of The Troubles conflict era in Northern Ireland and the restorative power of storytelling. The discussion was led by Citizen Educators from the WAVE Trauma Centre in Belfast, along with experts on trauma including Grainne McKenna, the Trauma Education Officer at WAVE. Joe Duffy noted the students’ appreciation of the screening and the experience shared, commenting on the “real sense of the powerful learning messages that the students and ourselves witnessed at this very special event”.