Geraldine Cynthia BrownCoventry University | CU · Centre for Agroecology Water and Resillience
Geraldine Cynthia Brown
PhD, MA, PgCert, BA (Hons)
About
61
Publications
10,283
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168
Citations
Introduction
I am currently carrying out a series of prison based studies. These studies examine programmes delivered in prisons by third sector/ community based organisations. The programmes are varied but all aim to support prisoners in prison and through the gate.
A key aspect of this work is to consider the relationship of these programmes to improving health and well- being, supporting desistance and rehabilitation.
Additional affiliations
January 2007 - November 2013
Position
- African Caribbeam Community Understanding and Responses to Gun Crime
Description
- Doctoral research (PT)
January 2007 - present
May 2004 - January 2015
Education
April 2007 - December 2014
September 1998 - April 2000
September 1994 - June 1997
Publications
Publications (61)
The research presented in this report is a multi-method study which draws on psychological and sociological ideas. The study is based on both quantitative and qualitative methods to gain an understanding of what influences young people’s decisions in regards to sex, sexual health and teenage pregnancy. The study aims to understand the interplay of...
This paper presents the findings from an evaluation of the Master Gardener Programme, a gardening intervention at a local prison with substance misuse offenders undertaken by an inter-disciplinary research team from Coventry University. The Master Gardener programme, led by Garden Organic ‘the UK’s leading organic charity’, was initially launched a...
In this report we detail key findings from a pilot study examining the role of community and land based interventions in supporting rehabilitation (it its widest sense), and the potential benefits to those who access them. The research tackled how such interventions and projects could support people’s journeys, for example: transitioning from priso...
In this report we present key findings from a study of Sandwell Advocacy’s Young Carers service. The report firstly outlines the background and context to the study, paying heed to what is meant by Advocacy. The report details the approach to the study, including the methodology and an overview of the participants and data collected. The main body...
A summary report based on an evaluation of The Conservation Foundation's Unlocking Nature Programme delivered at HMP Wandsworth. Whilst highlighting a number of challenges associated with delivering land-based prison interventions. The data shows a range of potential benefits and positive experiences of engagement with the programme, for prisoners...
This study explored evidence from women who had been
pregnant in prison about the realities of their experience
and, with this evidence, to ask whether pregnant women
should ever be sent to prison or whether alternatives should
always be sought.
Funding from Nature Scot, Cairngorms National Park Authority and Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park Authority provided an opportunity for Backbone CiC to continue reaching out to key stakeholders from the voluntary, community and statutory bodies working in The Outdoor and Nature Sector and key Black, Asian and Ethnic representatives and eng...
Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is increasingly embedded in higher education (HE) due to the current emphasis on tackling the environmental crisis. Similarly, Civic Society Organisations are expanding their mobilization and practical action in communities. These approaches can reach almost all people on the planet and open avenues for e...
This chapter presents the findings from an evaluation of the Master Gardener Programme, a horticultural intervention with substance-misusing men in prison, undertaken by an inter-disciplinary research team from Coventry University. The Master Gardener Programme, led by Garden Organic, ‘the UK’s leading organic charity’, was initially launched natio...
This book constitutes the first publication to utilise a range of social science methodologies to illuminate diverse and new aspects of health research in prison settings. Prison contexts often have profound implications for the health of the people who live and work within them. Despite these settings often housing people from extremely disadvanta...
Collaborative research offers an opportunity to access experiential knowledge, rooted in a process that aims to move beyond traditional research relationships and boundaries. Collaborative research does not always change the power differential; nonetheless, it has the potential to lead to ethical relationships and for partnership working that suppo...
In the UK, African Caribbean women's experiences of mothering and motherhood are often studied in isolation from how “race” structures and shapes their lives and everyday health and well-being. This failure to connect women's wellbeing and racialized injustices also occurs in debates around “gangs” and “urban gun crime” (UGC). The women's experienc...
Funded by The Hirschmann Foundation, a nonprofit charitable foundation http://hirschmannstiftung.ch/en/index.cfm, The London Food
Poverty Project [https://www.gardenorganic.org.
UK/food-poverty] aimed to work with communities
to build resilience and knowledge communities
so that involved communities feel confident to
address the triggers of food po...
A summary report based on an evaluation of The Conservation Foundation's Unlocking Nature Programme delivered at HMP Wandsworth. This report presents key findings from a study examining the experiences of key stakeholders (practitioners, prison staff, and prisoners) involved in The Conservation Foundation’s (CF) Unlocking Nature Programme, a Garden...
The study explores explore the reasons that lie behind children failing to attend school regularly, what problems this created for the family, the parents’ views of how the schools tackled their child’s problems, and whether or not the parents were prosecuted or threatened with prosecution
The data was collected using on online survey
126 parents...
In this report we present key findings from a study of Sandwell Advocacy’s Young Carers service. The report firstly outlines the background and context to the study, paying heed to what is meant by Advocacy. The report details the approach to the study, including the methodology and an overview of the participants and data collected. The main body...
The purpose was to provide an independent evaluation of Kairos WWT Prison In-reach project at HMP Peterborough and Floating Support Service in the community (Coventry). The Prison In-reach service involves a dedicated member of Kairos’ staff making
monthly visits to HMP Peterborough, meeting with female and a history of/or vulnerability to sex work...
With them, I find it is all about; baring yourself, empowering yourself, finding yourself, knowing yourself, doing yourself mentally, spiritually. So, it is always going to be hard. (Participant, C)
This Summary Report presents key findings from a study of the Drug, Alcohol and
Recovery Team (DART) and Drug Recovery Wing (DRW) at HMP Rye Hill.
In the UK, there has been growing concern about young people’s understanding of sexual consent, with the views of young people themselves often lost in academic and educational policy debates. However, the focus on high rates of sexual violence has meant a lack of attention on the everyday negotiation of consensual heterosexual activity, leading to...
Within the social sciences, there is a wealth of literature that examines the challenges and ethical dilemmas encountered by researchers in conceptualising, conducting and understanding their research. In this article, we share our reflections on experiences we encountered carrying out a qualitative evaluation of a prison gardening intervention wit...
This report is based on a study conducted by researchers at Coventry University. The study was commissioned by Coventry City Council (CCC) to increase understanding of young people’s knowledge, attitudes, perceptions, behaviours and influences in relation to
contraception, contraception services and pregnancy.
Objectives of the research
The follow...
In this thesis I adopt an auto/biographical approach to explore the relationship between ‘race’ racialisation, racism and ‘urban gun crime’ (‘UGC’). I specifically focus on the views and experiences of community activists from African Caribbean communities (ACC) in two localities in the West Midlands. The auto/biographical approach reflects a centr...
Following Josie Abbott and colleagues’ (2013) collective ‘Hairstories’ we reflect here on our individual and interconnected ‘HE(R)tales’. Thus, our presentation of people and places draws on our individual and multi-connected experience of working and learning in higher education (HE) with a specific focus on auto/biographical practices. Julie and...
In this paper we highlight the way in which research around teenage pregnancy has been commissioned in relation to a specific agenda. The pervasive political discourse authoritatively places teenage parents’ experiences outside of the norm, constructing teenage pregnancy as negative for young women, their children and wider society. Over several ye...
Poster detials, aims, objectives methodology and key findings from a pilot study exploring the expereicnes of young women living in Wolverhamptopn of gangs and gang related violence. This project was a collaboration with Engage Youth Empowerment Services an arts based community organisation working with young people in Wolverhampton
This poster reports on a a multi-method study which draws on psychological and sociological ideas to provide an enhanced understanding of factors that influence the decisions of young people in relation to sex, sexual health and teenage pregnancy. The aim of the study was to understand the interplay of individual and social factors and locate these...
Purpose ‐ This paper aims to report on an exploratory study exploring the provision of dementia advocacy. Design/methodology/approach ‐ The study adopted a qualitative approach. Data is based on 17 semi-structured interviews with a range of key stakeholders, and observations of the practice of advocates working in third sector organisations. The st...
In this paper we highlight the way in which research around teenage pregnancy has been commissioned in relation to a specific agenda. The pervasive political discourse authoritatively places teenage parents' experiences outside of the norm, constructing teenage pregnancy as negative for young women, their children and wider society. Over several ye...
This evaluation reports on the findings of a study undertaken by Coventry University into the impact and effectiveness of the Creative Gymnasium project. The study used arts-based inquiry to examine participants and stakeholders perspectives. The aim of the Creative Gymnasium project, delivered by the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, was to examine the...
This chapter focuses on some of the barriers to social inclusion faced by young parents. There are many inherent tensions as well as methodological, ethical and practical dilemmas and challenges to be overcome. The chapter calls into question the meaning of participation and involvement, and highlights the relationship between research, policy and...
In 2009 the National Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Children published ‘‘Partner
Exploitation and Violence in Teenage Intimate Relationships’’. This publication reports
on the first major study in the United Kingdom to systematically document the incidence
rates and dynamics of intimate partner violence in the lives of young people. It al...
Advocacy has long been identified as a valuable mechanism for providing support to individuals who experience difficulties in accessing services and whose voices often remain unheard in decisions relating to meeting their individual needs. However, the advocacy needs of older people age 65 and over with mental health problems remains a relatively u...
The articles suggests there is a need to look beyond the overwhelming tendency of policy makers to associate teenage pregnancy with factors such as low expectations, ignorance and mix messages about sex. It argues there is much to be leant by speaking directly to young people about how they make decisions about their sexual behaviour.
There is a common belief that peer pressure and alcohol are instrumental in teenagers having sex, but new research reveals a different story.
In Britain, teenage pregnancy is seen as both a cause and a consequence of social exclusion. The emphasis on 'prevention' of teenage pregnancy and a limited conception of 'support' within the Teenage Pregnancy Strategy (Social Exclusion Unit, 1999) positions parenthood for young people as a negative choice; this dominant discourse is likely to infl...
In 1990 Anthony Giddens argued:
The practical impact of social sciences is both profound and inescapable. Modern societies together with the organisations that compose and straddle them, are like learning machines, imbibing information in order to regularise their mastery of themselves … only society reflexively capable of modifying their instituti...
Previous work on teenage pregnancy and young motherhood undertaken in Coventry and Warwickshire (Letherby et al 2001, 2002, and 2003) demonstrates the importance of focusing on ‘insider’ accounts (Pheonix 1991): that is listening to and focusing on the accounts of pregnant women and young parents themselves. This research indicates that within Cove...
This article draws on completed qualitative research with pregnant teenagers, young mothers and the professionals (including midwives and health visitors) who support them. The aim of the project was to consider health and wellbeing in pregnancy, birth and postnatally for women who become pregnant under the age of twenty years. The research was com...
Projects
Projects (4)
Prison contexts often have profound implications for the health of the people who live and work within them. Despite these settings often housing people from extremely disadvantaged and deprived communities (Houchin, 2005), many with multiple and complex health needs (Senior and Shaw, 2007), health research is generally neglected within both criminology and medical sociology.
This book constitutes the first publication to utilise a range of social science methodologies to illuminate diverse and new aspects of health research in prison settings. Through the fourteen chapters of this book, a range of issues emerge that the authors of each contribution reflect upon. The ethical concerns that emerge as a consequence of undertaking prison health research are not ignored, indeed these lie at the heart of this book and resonate across all the chapters. Foregrounding these issues necessarily forms a significant focus of this introductory chapter.
Alongside explicitly considering emerging ethical issues, our contributing authors also have considered diverse aspects of innovation in research methodologies within the context of prison health research. Innovative research practice is challenging in this setting, given the myriad of practical issues that prison researchers face. Many of the chapters are innovative through the methodologies that were used, often adapting and utilising research methods rarely used within prison settings. By incorporating a range of perspectives on methodological and ethical issues, innovations in health focused social science research before, during and after a period in custody, this book constitutes an opportunity to explore continuities and disconnections in people’s health and wellbeing as they move through (and in and out of) the prison system. Chapters from a wide range of disciplines and engagements with the prison systems of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are incorporated within this book, including people with lived experience of prison, and those who work in custodial settings. It is hoped that the book will provide a starting place for on-going discussion around health research within prison settings in the UK, but also beyond. The book brings together chapters from students, scholars, practitioners and service users from a range of disciplines (including medical sociology, medical anthropology, criminology, psychology and public health).
To provide an opportunity for girls and young women to share their experiences of 'gangs' and gang related violence
