PGR Placement - Amy Redhead - International Journal of Disability Studies & Social Justice

Belonging to the school of Sociology and Social Policy, Amy Redhead is a Post-Graduate student who completed a six month placement through LSSI, working with Pluto Journals and the International Journal of Disability and Social Justice (IJDSJ). During her internship she met many team members from Pluto Journals and attended weekly meetings with members of the IJDSJ team. Amy established a good working relationship with both the founders of the IJDSJ, Professor Angharad Beckett and Professor Anna Lawson. Amy felt that ‘From the outset, I was made to feel not only welcome within the IJDSJ community, but my ideas and insights were valued and respected’.

Amy’s main responsibility was to help establish the International Disability Studies (IDS) Network membership scheme. She was tasked with researching online government guidance on how to establish and register the IDS Network for Charitable Incorporated Organisation status. In addition to this, Amy assisted the Centre for Disability Studies Administrator with the building of the IJDSJ and IDS Network websites, specifically in creating an interactive world map highlighting the geographical locations of the IJDSJ board members.

Amy explains her scope and purpose during the six month placement:

‘In order to establish a membership community, I explored different organisations that could be contacted as potential collaborators in the IDS Network. I created a table that outlined various potential contacts, including disabled peoples’ organisations, multinational, academic networks, national disability networks and human rights organisations, who were then contacted by the editors regarding potential involvement’.

Amy continues ‘Another of my tasks involved researching suitable networking and conferencing software packages that would enable the Network to communicate with members and host conferences from the same platform. In order to explore different methods of communication I arranged ‘pitch’ meetings with several software companies and trialled various different software packages’.

When asked to give a short summary of her time at Pluto and the IJDSJ, Amy gave a positive insight into her time spent there:

‘This internship allowed me to gain an understanding of how a cutting-edge, open-access publisher operates and has given me insight into not only how crucial open access publishing is, but also what needs to be done in order to make it successful.

During my six months working with the IDS Network, I have learnt invaluable lessons that will equip me going forward in academia. Understanding the processes involved in establishing a membership community, as well as working closely with people directly in the publishing field, has been both engaging and rewarding. I feel that I have certainly gained expertise from working on this internship, skills that I will be able to transfer to future endeavours, be they in an academic role or non-academic capacity. I would like to thank LSSI for providing this PGR Placement; Pluto Journals Ltd for sharing their knowledge and expertise; and finally, all of the staff working on the IDS Network for embracing me into their ever-growing community and allowing me to undertake this practical work towards social change and justice for disabled people’.

Having had such a positive impact, Amy expressed her eagerness to remain involved in the building of the IDS network and has offered her help in any capacity, working around her PhD. Since leaving she has have remained in contact with the team and has written a short ‘think-piece’ outlining a potential social media strategy. On top of this, she will continue to hold a voluntary role within the network.

The project not only had a positive impact on Amy, but she made a positive impression on those she worked with as seen in this quote from Professor Angharad Beckett who is the co-chair of the IJDSJ:

‘Amy has been immensely industrious, imaginative and collegiate in this role and we will miss her. She has helped lay the foundations for a new International Disability Studies Network, to which the journal will be associated. We hope she will remain involved in the journal and network longer term. She has demonstrated an ability to take on new tasks/challenges effectively and good judgement’.