News for tag - research

Adults with learning disabilities must be listened to on abuse

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 15:35:02 +0100

Society must be better at listening, believing and doing something when people with learning disabilities say they’ve been abused.

That is the message to come out of a unique piece of research undertaken by adults with learning disabilities.

Launched today, 6th March at the Senedd, by the Unit for Development in Intellectual Disabilities (UDID) at the University of Glamorgan in partnership with RCT People First and New Pathways, the research is the first of its kind in the UK to be undertaken by people with learning disabilities about the abuse of people with learning disabilities.

Over the three year duration of the project, funded by the Big Lottery Fund, over 100 men and women took part in the research which included a three day residential session. Participants were encouraged to discuss what they understood by abuse, what society should be doing to protect them, and what support people need if they are abused.

Professor Ruth Northway of the University of Glamorgan explained, “This research is innovative as it was people with learning disabilities who identified the area where they felt research was needed. They then worked with a university department to undertake a piece of substantial academic research. Throughout the process people with learning disabilities worked as researchers, were involved in all key decisions, and in many instances they were the decision makers.”

A number of studies have been carried out in recent years into the occurrences of abuse suffered by this group, but never before has the research been proposed, carried out and disseminated by people with learning disabilities themselves.

Professor Northway continued, “Understandably when asked about abuse participants expressed a range of strong emotions including embarrassment, loss of self-confidence and anger. Most worryingly, however, some participants said how abuse can lead people to feel like taking their life as they feel their life is not worth living. “

“We concluded that people with learning disabilities are aware of different types of abuse but may not receive formal education regarding abuse and keeping safe. Such education is important if people are to protect themselves from abuse and, should they experience abuse, that they are confident to disclose this to someone.

“If people are abused, then it is important that they receive appropriate, acceptable and timely support and participants particularly identified the need for others to be there for people who have been abused and for others to believe them if they disclose abuse. Unfortunately the wider literature and discussion amongst the research team suggested that such supports are not always available.”

Data was gathered from people with learning disabilities in Wales by means of individual interviews, focus groups and questionnaires.

In the questionnaires participants were given a number of strategies that might help keep people safe from abuse and asked to tick those they felt would be helpful. Participants were more likely to tick those strategies they could do for themselves than those that required other people to assist but all strategies were rated highly.

The data gathered was analysed by the research team and indicated that participants were aware of a wide range of different types of abuse. However, whilst some had received education about the nature of abuse others had learnt about it via the media or via friends who had been abused and through personal experience.

When asked what support people need when they have been abused the highest ratings were given to people being there for them, being believed and having support to live their life. The research team noted, however, that whilst these strategies were felt to be helpful the reality of people’s lives is that they are not always listened to and believed.

Swedish Collaboration brings Major Funding Success for Glamorgan History

Fri, 02 Nov 2012 11:21:28 +0100

University of Glamorgan historian Chris Evans has won funding worth £330,000 over the next three years in partnership with Professor Göran Rydén of Uppsala University in Sweden. Their project, Places for Making, Places for Taking: Metals in the Global Eighteenth Century, has been awarded a coveted grant by the Swedish funder Riksbankens Jubileumsfond.

“Places for Making, Places for Taking returns to a classic problem of social science”, Professor Rydén explains, “which is how to account for the transition from the early modern to modern.”

Professor Evans added, “We trace the history of metals like iron and steel, copper and brass, which were traded globally in the eighteenth century, to explore the connections between different parts of the world economy at the dawn of the modern age. Metals did not wait for the Industrial Revolution in order to act as agents of global interaction. Many historians assume that long-distance trade before the modern age was restricted to high-value luxuries like spices or silk, but metals were of untold importance as a medium of globalization before globalization.

“We’ll be examining how iron and copper played a critical role in the Atlantic slave trade, how the metallic needs of plantations in the New World acted as a stimulus to change in European manufacturing, and how copper was an vital commodity that interlinked Japan, India and Europe.”

Swansea Copper Research Project visits Australia

Thu, 13 Sep 2012 13:15:13 +0100

A major research project led by Professor Chris Evans at the University of Glamorgan is to visit South Australia to hold an international workshop on the subject of ‘Swansea Copper’.

‘World of Copper’ is an eighteen-month research project, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, which looks at Swansea’s world-renowned copper industry as an example of globalisation in the nineteenth century.

The workshop will be in Burra, South Australia (24-26 September), which was the first major copper mining settlement in Australia in the 1840s with Welsh copper smelters migrating all the way from Swansea.

Professor Evans commented, “We’re holding this event in Burra for a good reason: the imprint of Welsh industry is there for all to see. There’s a Llanelli Street there and even a neighbourhood called Llwchwr!”

The workshop will be an international gathering, with Welsh involvement from Glamorgan, Swansea and Cardiff universities, and the National Waterfront Museum.

Between 1830 and 1870 the Swansea district was the hub of the world’s first globally integrated heavy industry. Swansea’s copper smelters, who usually accounted for between 40 and 50 per cent of world output in these decades, drew ore from Australia, Chile, Cuba and elsewhere.

‘Swansea copper’ was a truly global phenomenon, involving mining and metal processing complexes on different continents and the mobilisation of capital, labour and technology across immense distances.

Professor Evans added, “Swansea copper was a strikingly early example of transnationalism at work. It speaks to the ‘new global history’ that has been such a feature of historical scholarship in recent years.

“We’ll be tracing how the Industrial Revolution became a global phenomenon in the nineteenth century, in this case using technologies developed in Wales.”

Glamorgan Records Office Open Session

Wed, 12 Sep 2012 14:41:00 +0100

The Glamorgan Records Office is visiting the University of Glamorgan on Friday 5th October to present an open session on how records can be best utilised by knowledge thirsty researchers.

The session will be open to members of the public interested in finding out how the Records Office can help with all sorts of project including discovering more about family history.

A day-long event has been organised with talks by professional and amateur researchers who will explain how and why research is conducted.

PhD student Spike Sheppard who is organising the event explained, “We expect that visitors to the event will have a varied range of research interests, not necessarily just those interested in history; many diverse subjects can be researched from records, such as midwifery, architecture, health and the sciences.

The University’s research office will hold a number of workshop seminars on what it means to be a researcher and tips and hints on how to succeed in this sometimes difficult area.

Events will run from 10am until around 4pm in the newly opened Postgraduate Centre (located in Ty Crawshay building at the front of the university). There will be a buffet provided at lunchtime.

This is an open event and all are welcome with a research interest, from students and lecturers, to members of the local community. To register your interest contact Spike Sheppard via email; ssheppar@glam.ac.uk

Glamorgan staff join board of International Society of Nurses in Genetics

Thu, 06 Sep 2012 15:10:57 +0100

Two members of staff at the University of Glamorgan have been voted onto the board of the International Society of Nurses in Genetics.

Professor Maggie Kirk, Head of Research in the Faculty of Health, Sport and Science at the University of Glamorgan, has been voted President-elect of the International Society of Nurses in Genetics, taking up office in October 2012, becoming President in October 2013.

In addition to Professor Kirk’s appointment Dr Emma Tonkin, Senior Research Fellow at the University, has been voted to join the ISONG Board as Member-At-Large.

The International Society of Nurses in Genetics is a global nursing specialty organisation dedicated to fostering the scientific and professional growth of nurses in human genetics and genomics worldwide. Based in the USA, it has over 350 members from across the world.

ISONG members have been at the forefront of efforts to raise awareness amongst nurses at all levels of the relevance of genetics to everyday practice and care of individuals, patients and families.

Professor Maggie Kirk said: “I am proud to belong to an organisation that has the growth of nurses to care for people and their genetic health at its heart and I’m delighted and honoured to have been elected to this role”.