WALES ESRC DTP PHD ‘COLLABORATIVE’ STUDENTSHIP - School of Social Sciences: Learning lessons: Informing suicide prevention from a documentary analysis of Child Practice Reviews (CPRs) and Adult Practice Reviews (APRs).

Outline

Cardiff University School of Social Sciences invites applications for PhD study with the possibility of being awarded a fully-funded ESRC DTP Studentship, available to start in October 2020, which is available in the area of Social Work and Social Care.

Child Practice Reviews (CPRs) and Adult Practice Reviews (APRs) take place where a serious incident, most commonly a death, has occurred for a vulnerable child or adult (Welsh Government, 2016a; 2016b). They provide insights into how lessons can be learnt from specific cases to inform practice, primarily with a view to mitigating future incidents (Sidebotham et al., 2016). To date, there has been no comprehensive attempt has been made to systematically review all CPRs and APRs where a probable suicide death has occurred. This is surprising given that suicides are the leading cause of death for young people in Wales (ONS 2019; Public Health Wales, 2014), and are a key area of preventable deaths across the life course (particularly for males). Further to this, suicidality is highly complex (Bolton et al., 2017) and is a source of considerable anxiety for practitioners (Slater, 2015; 2017). This project will utilise these valuable sources of data and explore how services can be better informed to protect vulnerable people at risk of suicide.

What is funded

Studentship Awards commence in October 2020 and will cover your tuition fees as well as a maintenance grant (currently £15,009 p.a. for 2019/20 for full-time students, updated each year); and includes access to an additional Research Training Support Grant (RTSG), though an element of this latter fund may be ‘pooled’ and require separate applications from 2020 onwards. There are other opportunities and benefits available to studentship holders, including an overseas fieldwork allowance (if applicable), internship opportunities, overseas institutional visits and other small grants.

Eligibility

Applications are invited from exceptional candidates with a first class or strong upper second class honours degree, or appropriate Masters’ degree. We welcome applications for both full and part-time study, and studentships are available as either ’1+3’ (i.e. one full year of research training Masters followed by three years full-time Doctoral study, or the part-time equivalent), or ’+3’ (i.e. three years of full-time doctoral study or its part-time equivalent), depending on the needs of the applicant. Further details on types of awards http://walesdtp.ac.uk/studentships/.

How to Apply

Applicants should apply to the Doctor of Philosophy in Social Sciences with a start date of October 2020 by 12 noon on 3 February 2020. In the research proposal section of your application, please specify the project title and supervisors of this project and copy the project description in the text box provided. In the funding section, please select “I will be applying for a scholarship/grant” and specify that you are applying for advertised funding from “ESRC Wales Doctoral Training Partnership”. Incomplete applications or applications received after the deadline will not be accepted.

1. Covering letter Set out your reasons and motivation for applying to study at Cardiff University and the pathway; your understanding and expectations of doctoral study; your academic interests generally, and particularly of those relating to your proposed research. The letter should be no more than two pages.

2. Academic / Professional Qualifications Where appropriate, this should also include proof of English Language Competency (7.0 IELTS minimum).

3. References Two academic references. Candidates must approach referees themselves and include references with their application.

4. Curriculum Vitae It should be no longer than two pages.

5. Research Proposal. The proposal should be up to a maximum of 1000 words, not including bibliographic references. We suggest that you use the following headings in your proposal:

• Title, aims and purpose of the research;

• Brief overview of the academic literature relevant to your field;

• Proposed design/methods;

• Academic contributions of your research;

• Indicative bibliographic references.