Staffordshire University hold first Action on Poverty Conference

Prof Kevin Hetherington – Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Staffordshire University

Professor Kevin Hetherington previously worked at The Open University as Pro Vice Chancellor for Research, Enterprise and Scholarship.  Within Staffordshire University he holds specific responsibility for research, the development of the academic strategy and providing strategic leadership on internationalisation and global connectivity. Kevin’s academic background in Cultural Sociology.  Kevin has been a regional council member for the Confederation of British Industry since 2018, Professor Hetherington was also a Universities UK delegate on Brexit.  Professor Hetherington has a strong research profile on urban and cultural issues, including on museums and heritage, and has authored four books and numerous peer reviewed journal articles.

Barry Knight is the author of Rethinking Poverty (Bristol University Policy Press) and has authored many other books in the field of tackling poverty, community development, society and democracy.  He is a frequent contributor to the Rethinking Poverty discussion hub that was stimulated by the Rethinking book.  A former adviser to the Ford Foundation, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, he was one of the founders of the #ShiftThePower campaign.  He is currently writing a history of international development and has extensive knowledge and expertise in methods to combat poverty. Barry has also worked in academia as a research fellow at Cambridge University and he has also worked as a civil servant for the Home Office.

Nic is the lead for Civic Engagement and Evaluation at Staffordshire University.  She has extensive experience in community and youth work practice, starting her career as a youth worker and progressing to strategic management levels within Stoke-on-Trent Youth Services. Nic has taught on a range of short and post graduate courses, including overseeing the Get Talking participatory research short course.  This participatory research approach has been used with Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service to develop their Children and Young People’s strategy.  Nic also led the Get Talking Hardship project commissioned by Stoke-on-Trent’s Hardship Commission and worked with 43 community researchers to understand the experiences of people living in hardship in the city.  This work developed into Keep Talking, a UKRI Enhancing Partnerships of Place Based Engagement project in partnership with Expert Citizens CIC to understand how to develop sustainable participatory research that benefits place.  Nic developed the Staffordshire University’s Connected Communities Framework and has established a Civic Fellowship scheme honouring community members for contributions to Staffordshire University.

Dr Katy Goldstraw is a senior lecturer in Health and Social Care. Her PhD used participatory research methods to consider voluntary sector responses to austerity. From her participatory PhD research, she has co-produced a Sustainable Livelihoods Resource Book, which is a toolkit that VCS organisations can use to facilitate an assets based organisational evaluation. She has worked in Higher Education and the Voluntary Sector throughout her career; writing on VCS assets, citizens voice, and anti-poverty participatory approaches. She has a particular research interest in using participatory arts-based research methods to include and empower the voices of previously unheard communities within her research. Katy works with APLE Collective in an Independent capacity with seeks to address poverty with lived experience. She has been involved in supporting lived experience contributions to Joseph Rowntree Foundation reports.

Chris is a Professor of Applied Health Research, and Director of the Centre for Health and Development (CHAD). His research interests and activities span a range of areas, including support for people experiencing multiple disadvantage (e.g., homelessness, offending, substance misuse and mental ill health), green space/natural environments and health, and cardiovascular disease prevention through NHS Health Check. Chris has led a range of research and evaluation projects over the last 14 years, securing income from funders that include NIHR and European Commission, and published over 75 articles. Recent work includes the overall evaluation of the VOICES partnership (local implementation of the 8-year Fulfilling Lives programme to support people experiencing multiple disadvantage) and a feasibility study of digital NHS Health Checks.

Fiona McCormack is a Research Officer for CHAD since 2016. Most of Fiona’s recent research sits within the Health Inclusion theme and focuses on understanding and improving experiences connected to homelessness and people with lived experience of multiple disadvantage; this includes research into city centre rough sleeping, homelessness and hospital discharge, support services for women, and Housing First. Fiona has over 12 years’ experience of working on qualitative studies related to health and social inequalities. She previously worked at the University of the West of Scotland and Glasgow Centre for Population Health, on studies of alcohol use, drugs and sex work.

Patrick Saunders is a Consultant in Public Health and Visiting Professor in Public Health at the University of Staffordshire. He has held service, research, teaching and management posts with the WHO, European Union, Public Health England, local government, the NHS and a number of Universities. Following retirement from the NHS he has maintained active research, teaching and consultancy commitments to a range of bodies including the Royal College of Physicians, the Faculty of Public Health, and the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. He has been involved in addressing health inequalities his entire career and continues to support a range of public and voluntary sector bodies including The Trussel Trust, England Illegal Money Lending team, the West Midlands Modern Slavery Network, Medact, the ‘Is it a crime to be poor’ unit at the University of Birmingham and the Socialist Health Association.

Julie joined Staffordshire University in 2013 teaching on the Social Welfare Law, Policy and Practice course and is now the course leader for the degree in Action on Poverty and Hardship.  Julie has worked in the anti-poverty sector via her work delivering social welfare law services to clients through advising and representing clients in social security appeals, including representing at tribunals in addition to raising social policy issues and contributing to government consultations and reviews at a local and national level.  Julie previously worked for Citizens Advice and Disability Solutions West Midlands.

Stewart is the author of The Richer The Poorer, How Britain Enriched the Few and Failed the Poor, a 200-year History ( Bristol University Press ). He has written widely on poverty, wealth and inequality.    He is a visiting fellow, School of Policy Studies, University of Bristol, a Council Member of the Progressive Economy Forum, and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. His other recent books include Breadline Britain and The Cost of Inequality,. 

Associate Professor Anna Francis is an artist and researcher whose work aims to create space to discuss and reframe city resources, through participatory art interventions. In recent years the interventions which Anna has worked on focus on the city of Stoke-on-Trent and use an action research process to recognise untapped resources, plan responses to disused sites in the city, take action to change the way these sites are viewed, and potentially, make changes, which can be temporary and sometimes permanent. Through this, Anna aims to gain an understanding of the role of artists, arts organisations and communities in the development of places.  Anna is Associate Professor of Fine Art and Social Practice at Staffordshire University, and a Director at AirSpace Gallery, and The Portland Inn Project.

Dr Emma Wincup is a Research Manager in Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s Insight and Analysis Team, specialising in qualitative and participatory methods. Her current research focuses in particular on destitution and deep poverty, and she is currently co-lead of a programme of place-based work. Prior to joining JRF in 2019, Emma was a university academic, teaching and researching social policy and criminology. She remains actively involved in criminal justice as a trustee of a Leeds-based charity supporting women and men leaving prison.