Tell us about yourself
I am a Senior Lecturer and Early Career Researcher with research expertise that connects developmental and forensic psychology. I am interested in designing, delivering, and evaluating evidence-based practice for interviewing vulnerable people, particularly children and adolescents, as part of police investigations as either victims, witnesses or suspects.
My research investigates the impact of different interview techniques on the quality of children’s and adolescent’s testimony and explores the impact of social factors on truth-telling and lie-telling decisions to inform truth-promotion strategies. I work with police both nationally and internationally to understand the frontline issues in child forensic interviewing and promote knowledge exchange on best practice guidelines. I am a member of the ImpleMendez Cost Action project that aims to deliver international training on what works in child forensic interviewing to a range of law enforcement agencies.
As the Lead of the Understanding Childhood and Adolescence Research Excellent Group within the School of Humanities and Social Science, I promote interdisciplinary research culture and collaboration both within the University of Brighton and with their community partners. I am currently developing a project to improve access to justice for child maltreatment cases by connecting psychology and policing to evaluate new investigative interviewing techniques.
Why did you want to become a Research Affiliate?
I wanted to become a Centre Research Affiliate because as an Early Career Researcher, I was keen to broaden my research horizons and commit to developing my research portfolio in vulnerability and policing, particularly police interviewing and investigating/prosecuting cases involving young people.
My current output is primarily limited to academic journals and academic conferences. I wanted more opportunities to showcase my expertise to broader audiences, particularly practitioners and non-academic stakeholders, through the Vulnerability & Policing Futures Research Centre’s annual conference and closed events as well as through writing content intended for non-academic audiences. Being a Research Affiliate enables me to diversify my network and learn from different perspectives and approaches, and ultimately have a more meaningful impact through my research.
How does your research connect to the Centre’s mission and values?
My research aligns with the Centre’s mission by understanding how child victims’ and witnesses’ vulnerabilities inform police interviewing practice and research into developing new interviewing techniques.
The aim is to elicit best evidence, improving prosecution rates and access to justice for this vulnerable population. Through collaboration with police partnerships and government agencies, the goal is to drive change by taking a whole system approach to addressing the challenges that both child interviewees and child forensic interviewers face.
By balancing co-production and empirical research, the approach is to establish solution-focused interview techniques that can easily translate into the field and a robust evidence base to stand up to cross-examination in court. This a reciprocal exchange whereby psychological literature can inspire new innovations in investigative interviewing and push the boundaries of what is possible, and practitioner insights can highlight what boundaries can and cannot be pushed.
Ethics, research integrity, including open science practices, and inclusivity are integral to my research. It is only through transparent knowledge exchange that meaningful impact to both research and police practice can happen. It is only by ensuring that all key stakeholders have a voice that you can be sure that any new interview developments benefit all.