One of the students whose work was published in our 9th edition of Fields was Claudia Quintans Costa from the School of Human and Health Sciences.

We asked Claudia to tell us a bit more about the research below and you can read the full article here:

"The world is already hard to navigate as it is, but that paired up with a disability and society’s general disinterest in accommodating those needs; one becomes especially vulnerable to negative experiences: extra health issues, discrimination, lack of opportunities/support and even crime.

One area that sparked special interest was the strong link between having a disability and getting involved with crime, especially with committing crime; for that reason, this research focuses on exploring current support measures in the Education System for SEN youngsters and the effects of poor support combined with living in prison in SEN prisoners through the perspective of professionals working in the sectors. This research highlights that the inadequate support on youngsters can result in extreme vulnerability for gang grooming, as for prisoners the lack of support translates in poor living skills when released and high reoffending rates; some of the reasons the professionals gave for the inadequate support in both sectors were lack of funding, outdated resources and poor staff training measures.

The last chapter stresses recommendations such as close collaboration between institutions and professionals and points out the extreme need for new research on the topic as it is scarce and the research that is out there is quite outdated."

Fields: Journal of Huddersfield Student Research Open Access Author Spotlight SEND