In 2011 Professor Theresa Gannon secured a grant to undertake a three year project on the development, implementation and evaluation of a specialist treatment programme for criminal firesetters. As part of this programme, Magali Barnoux (Post Doctoral Researcher at Tizard) was awarded PhD funding to undertake some theoretical and empirical work to contribute towards the overall outcomes.
The findings in Magali’s PhD contributed towards the first stage of the grant and helped to develop a new model describing how the offence process unfolds for imprisoned male firesetters (Barnoux, Gannon & O Ciardha, 2014). During the three years Magali also undertook work as a Research Assistant for Prof Gannon on other parts of the grant.
Overall the grant resulted in the first comprehensive theory of deliberate firesetters and the first effective treatment programme for offenders, which is being adopted by Australia, North America and Europe.
More information is available.