We are happy to share the excellent news that 2 members of the FCRG won at this year’s College of Social Science (CoSS) Showcase Award.
Dr Hannah Merdian won ‘Most significant local and/or national impact’ for her work on Child Sexual Exploitation Material (CSEM), including their beliefs, sexual interests, and pathways to offending.
Dr Lauren Smith won the ECR Award, and was also part of the winning Prison Governors Wellbeing Project who won ‘Most novel public engagement or dissemination’
The British Board of Film Classification has published their work on non-photographic images of child sexual abuse, which includes a commissioned report by FCRG member Dr Hannah Merdian and the onlinePROTECT team.
The work has been endorsed by the Internet Watch Foundation, Barnardo’s, Childnet, and NSPCC.
In May 2022, HannahMerdian was invited to be a permanent member of the network of academics working in child protection, established by Simon Bailey who is Chair of the Policing Institute for the East Region (PIER).
In March, Ross Bartels was invited to collaborate on a funded project entitled “Can you tell me more? The development of a Virtual Conversational Agent (VCA) for assessing and monitoring sexual interests and fantasies of sex offenders‘).
Ross joins PI (Prof Jean-Pierre Guay) from the University of Montreal (and others) on the project, which received funding ($249,488) from the Government of Canada (under the ‘New Frontiers in Research Fund’).
In Feb 2022, Amanda Roberts (and colleagues) were awarded the Psyche Award for Most Valuable Paper on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic by the Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy.
They will receive a shiny certificate and feature in the spring edition of the journal.
Amanda has also been nominated as Co-Chair at the GREO (Gambling Research Exchange Ontario) Academic Forum for the Study of Gambling (AFSG) alongside Jim Rogers in the School of Health and Social Care.
The forum provides a coordinated voice of independent researchers in the UK to advance the research needed to effectively prevent, reduce, and address gambling harm.
The European Council of Ministers have passed recommendations brought to the European Council regarding the assessment, management and reintegration of persons accused or convicted of a sexual offence; see here.
The submission was coordinated by Prof Kieran McCartan (UWE) with a consortium of international stakeholders.
Hannah Merdian led the submission on behalf of the “International Association for the Treatment of Sexual Offenders” (IATSO).
In Oct 2020, Lauren Smith and Amanda Roberts (with Jim Rogers and Tom George from the School of Health and Social care) were awarded the contract to evaluate the Nottinghamshire Rough Sleeper Initiative and Rapid Rehousing Pathway.
