PGR student placement opportunity to work on a project with Humankind

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a PGR student to work on a project with Humankind. 

Humankind is committed to reducing deprivation and exclusion and to improving people’s well-being. We have over 1,300 staff and around 100 volunteers providing services for around 86,000 people.  Our specialist services include substance use, clinical, employment training and education, housing services, housing support and health, young people, and families’ services. For more information see https://humankindcharity.org.uk/ and https://humankindcharity.org.uk/humankind-impact-report-2020-21/. 
Humankind is the second largest provider of drug and alcohol services in England and is the lead partner and contract manager for Forward Leeds, commissioned by Leeds City Council and the NHS Leeds Clinical Commissioning Group. Since it began in July 2015, 12,000 people have been referred into Forward Leeds – that’s 1 in every 50 adults in Leeds. For more information see https://www.forwardleeds.co.uk/about-us/. 

The proposed project/work to be delivered: 

A Supervised Injecting Facility (SIF) is a site which permits the self-administration via injection of a person’s own supplies of illicit substances. The legality of SIFs remains controversial in the UK; however, there is increasing interest in operating such facilities as a result of increasing drug related harms including deaths, and their endorsement in reports from organisations including the ACMD and EMCDDA. 

Humankind is keen to understand the views of key stakeholders in the City regarding SIFs through an independent and objective scoping exercise which considers local perspectives.  Humankind would like the postgraduate research student to undertake a series of semi structured interviews and present a short-written report analysing the responses and a contextual analysis. 

Proposed timescales (the maximum placement duration is 130 hours): 

The weekly working hours and start date are to be agreed by the successful student and Humankind, this will not be more than 2 days per week for a period of 12 weeks. The student will be provided with a £1950 bursary to cover their time on the placement. The ideal candidate and skills required: Experience in qualitative research, particularly the design and analysis ofsemi structured interviews and the ability to conduct these independently. 

• Ability to be professionally engaging and encourage this group of research subjects totalk openly.
• An appreciation of the contested nature of the subject and the ability to present thispositively and at the same time disentangle perception, opinion, and fact in theanalysis of responses. 
• The ability to make clear and concise recommendations for future action based on the findings of the research. 

The anticipated benefits the students skills/experience: 

• This is an opportunity for a PGR to undertake a piece of research feeding into ahighprofileproject for a sector leading, national organisation. 
• The opportunity to have access to high level research subjects to interview
• The findings of this research will feed into national debates about the provision of SIFs.
• The possibility of an academic publication and certainly a report that that will be usedwithin theorganisation and externally with key stakeholders.  This opportunity is open to Postgraduate Researchers at the University of Leeds, if you are interested in applying for this placement position please send: 
•  Your CV
• Covering letter
• Email from your supervisor that they are happy for you to undertake the placement

Send all documents to LSSI Institute Manager, Cheryl Harris, c.a.harris@leeds.ac.uk by 14th January 2022. 

We will be reviewing the CVs after this date, and you may be asked to attend an informal interview with the Humankind team.