WELS news

​Health and Social Care graduate Jo had to leave school after her O-Levels, to help support her family. Following a conversation with a colleague, she was inspired to pursue an Access course with the OU, which she describes as a 'game-changer'. She shared her OU journey with us. 

​A research project, led by Professor Kwame Akyeampong, which takes a play-based approach to learning to improve education in early years education in Africa, has received $500,000 CAD in funding.

Two reports on the effect of COVID-19 on people with learning disabilities launched on 10 December. Carried out by the Social History of Learning Disability (SHLD) research group with the Faculty of WELS) the research focuses on lessons learned during COVID-19 that can help shape how support for people with learning disabilities can be better organised and better funded.

For Grief Awareness Week 2020, three academics from the School of Health, Wellbeing and Social Care (HWSC), Dr Kerry Jones, Dr Sharon Mallon, and Dr Erica Borgstrom, came together to explore experiences of children and young people’s death anxiety as a result of COVID-19, the impact of the pandemic and death on staff working in care establishments, and how grief was reported in UK newspapers.

Dr Mathijs Lucassen is supporting updates to an existing digital therapy program in order to better support the mental health of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender/trans, intersex and questioning (LGBTIQ+) youth.

A team from the School of Languages and Applied Linguistics (LAL) in WELS is undertaking new research into how language can shed light on how ideas of “right” and “wrong” emerged in language, in relation to government guidance on social distancing and face-coverings.

A report on ‘learning disability and belonging’ has been published, following exchange trips between UK and Japanese research teams.

Dr Lina Adinolfi, English Language Lecturer from the School of Languages and Applied Linguistics, has celebrated 3 million views of the authentic classroom video clips she developed as part of the TESS-India project.

On World AIDS Day 2020 we spoke to Dr Tom Witney, Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies (WELS), about HIV stigma and how recent advances in HIV treatment not only promise to alter the dynamics of the epidemic but have the potential to transform the experience of people living with HIV.

Karen Baker, recipient of a WELS Student Inspirational Achievement Award 2020, was determined to complete her Primary Education studies despite experiencing major health issues in the final stages of her degree.