University News Last updated 02 May 2012
The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) has awarded a £17,500 grant to Birmingham City University to support a series of seminars on enrichment activities in the criminal justice system.
The grant will be led by Laura Caulfield, Senior Lecturer in Criminal and Forensic Psychology at Birmingham City University, in conjunction with the University of Birmingham and Northumbria University, with additional support from charity, Clinks.
There will be four seminars in series, entitled ‘Enrichment activities? Arts, creativity and spirituality in criminal justice systems’ which will run over an 18 month period and will be involve a mixture of academic and practitioner input, with highly respected speakers from the UK and US.
The seminars will build on cross-sector relationships between the academics and practitioners, develop knowledge transfer skills and further develop an actual community of practitioners and academics based on the Arts Alliance virtual community.
Laura Caulfield’s vast experience in evaluating enrichment activities in prisons puts her in an excellent position to drive the project forward. She said: “We hope the seminars will allow us to share best practice in delivering and evaluating arts based projects in criminal justice systems around the world. It will be a valuable opportunity for people to learn from experts who have taken part in criminal justice based initiatives and to draw on competing and complementary views.”
The first seminar will be held at Birmingham City University in November this year, with subsequent events to be held in London, Leicester and Newcastle.