Psychology News Spring 2009

Psychology Accreditation with the British Psychological Society :
 
Following the recent visit by the British Psychological Society, Psychology has been successful in receiving accreditation until 2014 for all its 3 year Undergraduate programmes, including new awards in Psychology and Counselling, Psychology and Life Challenges, Health Psychology and Psychology and Child Development.

Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP)
Professors Rachel Davey and Sarah Grogan have been successful in securing £107,000 for a KTP with Stoke Primary Care Trust. The KTP is funded for 2 years by the ESRC and Department of Health for a community-led intervention on reducing health inequalities related to physical activity and healthy eating. The proposed intervention will be undertaken in three of the most deprived wards in Stoke-on-Tent and will:
1. use community participatory research to build an effective community partnership in order to engage community residents, strengthen community involvement and participation
2. based on partnership consensus, identify, prioritise and design intervention(s) related to specific health disparities (and their relevant determinants, mediators)
3. recruit local residents to help with the delivery and sustainability of the target intervention(s)
4. establish local systems for ongoing monitoring and evaluation of the intervention and overall impact on social capital and health inequalities.

Details for the post of Research Associate will be out shortly. For further information please contact: r.davey@staffs.ac.uk or s.c.grogan@staffs.ac.uk

Katrina Austin, has won an adult learners West Midlands regional award with NIACE (National Institute of Adult Continuing Education) following her nomination by Judy David.  This is quite a prestigious award, a real credit to Katrina and her learning experience at Staffordshire University.  Both Judy and Katrina are invited to the presentation of the award at RAF Cosford on 11th May.  Katrina also is invited to BBC West Midlands for a day and also to a National Award Ceremony later in May.

Ceri Parsons has just been invited to be a regular psychology contributor to a national magazine (Yours).

The staff from the  clinical psychology doctorate team have been awarded a contract by the West Midlands Strategic Health Authority to continue to deliver the Post Graduate Diploma in CBT for another 2 years. We are delivering this award in partnership with staff from the South Staffordshire & Shropshire Foundation NHS Trust.

Mark Forshaw has been asked to sit on the Quality Assurance Committee of the College of Podiatrists at the Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists, he has also been elected to sit on the Council of the Institute of Health Promotion and Education.

Julie Hulme has been appointed as an associate editor of the Journal Psychology Teaching Review, the official journal of the BPS Division of Teachers and Researchers in Psychology, January 2009.

Dr Helena Priest has been appointed consultant/facilitator for the project ‘Diversity in the Psychology Curriculum at Keele University; A collaborative action research project’ Funded by HEA Psychology Network & Keele Teaching Innovation Scheme.  Helena has also been asked to be co-ordinating editor forIssue 7 of the BPS Qualitative Methods in Psychology (QMiP) Section Newsletter (due out in May 09).

Christine Blincoe and Helen Dent delivered a presentation 'Experts on the Experts' at the Designated Civil Judge's Annual conference at Warwick University on 25th & 26th June.  It went very well and they enjoyed dining with the Lord Chief Justice and the champagne reception!

Julie Hulme was the keynote speaker at a HEA Psychology workshop entitled The Double EE's: Giving Students Feedback Efficiently and Effectively on 28th May 2009 at the University of Westminster.  Her talk was entitled Efficient and Effective Feedback: Is it possible to do both? and included discussion of research conducted as part of her Staffordshire University Learning and Teaching Fellowship, as well as a HEA Psychology miniproject with Mark Forshaw.

Christine Blincoe, Elicia Cooke, Helen Dent and Sarah Krahenbuhl delivered on May 22nd a workshop to a group of Judges, Barristers, Solicitors, Guardians and CPS lawyers, entitled 'Achieving Best Evidence : Why Adhere to ABE Guidance? Expert Psychological Analysis of Children’s Testimony'. It was very well received and one judge commented that it would inform his future directions to juries and his observations of barristers' interviewing. PhD student Elicia gave an extremely accomplished presentation.

David Galbraith was invited to present a paper opening a Writing Development and Instruction workshop sponsored by the US government Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, DC.  The workshop was hosted by the National Institutes for Literacy and of Child Health and Human Development.  It took place 17-20 May and was designed to set the agenda for the new administration's initiative to improve literacy in US schools.  David was one of two non-US researchers invited to participate in the workshop.

Helen Lee, Lubek, I., and other international collaborators presented a paper at the Conference for International Society of Theoretical Psychology, Nanjing, China May 14-19, 2009. Who speaks for community health crises/progress? How grass-roots stakeholders with community-grounded views of theory, research and practice confront top-down, globalized industry responses about alcohol abuse and AIDS in Cambodia.

David Galbraith is one of two European researchers invited to address a Writing Research workshop funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to be held in Washington DC, 18-19 May.  The aim of the workshop is to define the future agenda for US research in the field, and to relate this to the development of US education policies.

Pavlos Filippopoulos was invited to present his recent research activity in the international conference organised by A.P.P.A.C with title : Recent developments in Psychiatry and Psychotherapy in Globalised World, held in Athens, Greece on May 5. His talk (Time: How much do we know... and how much we can learn from...).

Stephen Gallagher attended a psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) conference recently which was held at the University of Birmingham on the 23rd April and chaired the session titled ‘New developments in psychoneuroimmunology: populations, paradigms and pathways’.  Stephen also went to the Medical Research Society (http://www.medres.org.uk) annual meeting in London, which is held in conjunction with the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Royal College of Physicians.  At the conference, Stephen presented a poster: Gallagher, S., Phillips, A.C., Drayson, M., & Carroll, D., (2009).  The effect of psychosocial factors on antibody response to vaccinations in both students and parents caring for children with developmental disabilities.  The contents of the paper have been submitted for publication, in the Brain Behaviour and Immunity, Biological Psychology and Psychosomatic Medicine.

Dr Erica Lucas attended the 6th International Conference on Thinking held in Venice in August. Dr Erica Lucas and Dr Linden Ball presented a poster called  Suppressed Q-card selections in Wason’s four-card problem: Eye-tracking evidence for a dual process account.

Professor Helen Dent, Dr Helena Priest and Dr Christine Blincoe presented a poster on Innovative methodology in the delivery and evaluation of inter-professional education at the Division of Clinical Psychology Annual Conference, 11-12 December 2008, Congress Centre, London along with Dr Paula Roberts & Ms Christine Armstrong (School of Nursing and Midwifery, Keele University).

Helen Jones will be presenting at a GTiCP (Group of Trainers in Clinical Psychology) conference - about our recent pilot of using 'Values Exchange' software for personal and professional issues teaching.
The ultimate purpose of the 'Values Exchange' is to promote deliberative democracy, which is a process in which participants review evidence, learn more about the issues, learn from each other, debate with each other and eventually create new questions for debate. Staffordshire University is one of very few universities to have a licence for Values Exchange software and so has its own online site, allowing us more opportunity for tutor-led use of it. It seems well-suited to many areas of psychology teaching.