Tizard News and Events

A three-year research project  carried out by Autism London, MCCH, Kent Police and the Tizard Centre, University of Kent has now reached its conclusion.  This is an opportunity to share the findings and recommendations which have been made.

Monday 11th November, 1.30-4.30 at Kent Police Training School (attendance likely to be predominantly police and community safety agencies)
Wednesday 27th November, 1.30-4.30 Corn Exchange Rochester (attendance likely to be family and paid carers, social services and health professionals)
Thursday 5th December, 10.30-3.30 King Charles Hotel, Gillingham (attendance is people with learning disabilities and autism- an accessible conference)

Please note in addition to these events there will also be  a conference on the 7th January 2014 at LSE (this is intended to be an academic and policy conference), more information on this event and booking arrangements to follow soon.

The research based in Medway and Kent looked at:

• how many people with autism and learning disabilities are victimised.
• the characteristics of victims and what happens to them.
• who perpetrators are.
• barriers to reporting incidents and getting support.
• the impact that the experiences and fears of victimisation has on wellbeing.
• what the police find difficult in responding to reports

Almost half the people surveyed told researchers that bad things happened to them when out and about in the community.  This included physical attacks, threats, verbal abuse and damage to property. This resulted in making changes to their daily lives to avoid further incidents.

For more information or to complete a booking form for these events please see MCCH website: http://www.mcch.org.uk/livinginfear/index.aspx

Kate Blamires is currently undertaking an MSc at the Tizard Centre and for her dissertation she is hoping to look at how the new DOLS procedures are working for people with learning disabilities (supervised by Prof Glynis Murphy). 

The aim is to interview care managers and home managers for people with LD where DOLS have been applied for. Kate is completely cleared for ethics (through SCREC, which covers social care venues and also covers NHS venues).  She has been experiencing immense difficulty tracking down any examples of DOLS for LD, and wondered if anyone might be able to help?

Please let Kate know if you think you might be able to help identify potential participants.  Email:  kb398@kent.ac.uk

We are delighted to announce this scholarship, available to a student on one of our Master’s programmes in intellectual disabilities, autism or applied behaviour analysis.  The scholarship will pay for the equivalent of Home/EU student’s fees and possibly some additional expenses.  Preference will be given to candidates who have a professional qualification in social work and/or an established interest in the area of forensic issues/secure services. 

To apply for this scholarship please email Peter McGill (P.McGill@kent.ac.uk)  covering the following points:

1. what do you know about people with intellectual disabilities in the Criminal Justice System and the difficulties they face?
2. your relevant experience/background, clinical or research based, with offenders with intellectual disabilities.
3. why do you think you are the best candidate for this scholarship?

The deadline date for applications is the 4th October 2013. 

The Tizard Centre reserve the right not to award the scholarship in the event of there not being a suitable candidate.

Learn a new language with Language Express – The Centre for English and World Languages (CEWL) is offering a range of different exciting language opportunities for all to study. 

You can attend a ‘meet the tutors’ event on 30 September, 1-3pm (Canterbury campus). This is an opportunity for you to liaise with their teaching staff in an informal setting.

If you are interested in studying Japanese, Spanish, German, Italian or English, then please go to the Keynes foyer. For Mandarin, Arabic, French, Portuguese or Russian, then please go to the Gulbenkian.

For any international students wishing to improve their English written or language skills, the Centre (CEWL) is about to launch this year’s English Language Development Programme (ELDP). The ELDP is a free English course for international students. The aim of the course is to further develop and support Kent students’ English for academic purposes.  The programme consists of four taught non-credit bearing modules and a series of individual tutorials, including:

· Grammar
· Essay Writing
· Seminar Discussion and Presentation Skills
· Listening/Note Taking
· Individual Writing Tutorials

You will be able to register for the ELDP via the SDS from academic week 2 and classes will begin from week 3.  To register please login to the SDS, > select Workshops > English Language > and then choose the modules you would like attend.  Further information is available on their webpage: http://www.kent.ac.uk/cewl/courses/in-sessional/eldp.html

The Tizard Centre would like to extend a warm welcome to all of our new and returning students.

If you need help, please contact one of the following:
Jahanara Ahmed/Trish Barton:  Undergraduate Student Support Officers
Nicky Allen:  Postgraduate officer
Simona Uberti: Finance Officer

Alternatively if you are at Tizard you are welcome to come into our Admin Office (G01) and Jo Ruffels will endeavour to help you.  All staff email addresses are available on our staff pages: http://www.kent.ac.uk/tizard/staff/index.html 

The University of Kent Student Union is hosting it’s Welcome Fayre this week.  If you would like more information please see the University main webpage: http://www.kent.ac.uk/gettingstarted/canterbury/welcome-week-sept.html  This will be particularly of interest to those of you living on the Canterbury campus. 

We are delighted to announce that Dr Rachel Forrester-Jones has been awarded a research grant to make a comparative study looking in to the welfare of older people in the UK, France and Italy. “How do different welfare regimes influence outcomes of loneliness and subjective well-being”.

The team which includes Dr Sandro Stanzani, Associate Professor at the University of Verona, and Precious Nwosisi, PhD student at the Tizard Centre, will seek to analyse the social networks of older people in 3 different European Countries.  It is designed to indicate whether there are differences in social network structure as well as social support. 

The work is a quantitative study taking data from 3 different European towns; namely Canterbury (UK), Verona (Italy) and Lille (France) with the sample group being made up of over 80 year olds.

For more information: http://www.kent.ac.uk/tizard/research/Current_recent_research.html