Olivia (Via) Price is a final-year undergraduate psychology student
at Cardiff University.
My academic interests mostly lie within clinical psychology and developmental psychology. I recently did a clinical placement year in the NHS, where I was split between two different therapeutic teams. These were Paediatric Psychology, where I was supporting children and young people with chronic health conditions such as type 1 diabetes, and BASE, where I was supporting children and young people who were in care. I think this population really needs more support, and are so vulnerable, both through genetics, early life adversities, developmental trauma experienced at home, and possible further trauma experienced in foster or residential care.
I decided to intern at DECIPHer to work with Dr Rebecca Anthony (Becky), on her project researching how care-experienced young people experience their relationships. I was really excited by the creative approach to the qualitative analysis that Becky wanted to take.
‘I’m really excited by the idea that these creative outputs might help to make a difference for care-experienced children and young people.’
From these interview transcripts, I have created a booklet of I-statement poetry to really shine a light on these young people’s voices and their lived experiences. I have also created two videos, one highlighting where young people can be better supported in the care system, and the other highlighting where young people have, or have not, felt loved and supported.
The hope is that these creative outputs will make the research findings much more accessible and impactful to those who aren’t from a research background, such as policy makers, social workers, foster carers, and other young people.
I really enjoyed this opportunity to be creative and am really excited by the idea that these creative outputs might help to make a difference for care experienced children and young people.
I will be taking away the creative methods I have used and hope to be able to include them in my dissertation. I will also be taking away the new friendships I have made with the other lovely internship and placement students across Spark.
