FIRST POSTED ON AUGUST 7 2019 AT 09:48
Months of hard work paid has paid off for one of our Dundee Project Workers, Claire Kelly, whose research paper on substance misuse amongst young people was published by the Centre for Youth & Criminal Justice (CYCJ).
Claire successfully applied to take part in the three-month research placement with CYCJ, which was in collaboration with includem. The paper takes a look at the existing research literature on young people and substances and includes the experiences of includem staff.
Claire said: “By conducting this research paper I was able to use this knowledge and think about my current practice. The literature review provided me with more knowledge and theories that I’m able to pass on to colleagues to adapt current ways of working to ensure that we are all supporting young people with substance misuse with the best resources.”
Meg Thomas, our Head of Programme Design & Policy Management, said: “The way young people view alcohol and drugs is constantly evolving, as are the types of substances available and how young people use them. It’s really important that we keep an eye on these trends and make sure our staff are as informed as possible so they can support young people as best they can.
“The research landscape is huge and ever-evolving too, so being able to collaborate with CYCJ to support one of our staff to do their own research has been hugely valuable, both for Claire and for the rest of our staff.”
Nina Vaswani, Research Fellow at CYCJ, commented: “We were really pleased when includem came forward to collaborate with us for this placement. Supporting practitioner research is an important element of our work because we believe that it will not only benefit the practitioner but the research arena as well. Includem has been at the forefront of delivering services to young people in Scotland for many years, so they were a natural fit for this joint project.”
