VAMHN'S ECR BURSARY WINNER rachel whyte DISCUSSES HER ATTENDANCE AT THE "Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls Conference 2023 " conference

Have a read below to see what our ECR bursary winner Rachel Whyte did with their award money. 

I was thrilled to have received the VAMHN ECR bursary to attend the Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls Conference 2023 in late January. Uniquely, my role as a Researcher in Mental Health, is to work across multiple NIHR funded projects, all of which aim to reduce violence in hospital and community settings using co-produced approaches. My current projects have been pivotal in developing my skills as a researcher; however, they have been focused in my professor’s area of reducing restrictive practices. As an emerging independent researcher, I am committed to pursuing my interest in domestic abuse, mental health and trauma research and attending this conference acted as a catalyst for this transition. Being exposed to the latest knowledge in this area provided me with a springboard for planning my Pre-Doctoral Fellowship application which is due for submission in March 2023 and has a focus on perpetrators of domestic abuse.
 
The conference highlighted the latest resources, strategies, and policies in place to tackle domestic abuse, including issues exacerbated by the rise in digital crimes. This allowed for the effectiveness of these current strategies to be questioned and the remaining gaps in research/practice to be inferred. This has helped me design a Fellowship topic and proposal that aligns to current Government strategies and is meaningful to current real-world problems as well as considering cultural differences. I am extremely thankful to VAMHN for this opportunity to inform and strengthen my NIHR application.