Professor Sarah Wydall

• Violence, Abuse and Harm
• Violence against Women and Girls
• The study of social harms
• Deviance and Society
• Meanings of Justice
• Imprisonment
• Media Representations of Harm
• Domestic Homicide
• Intersectional Oppressions

Qualitative research methodologies: I am a qualitative researcher, I am passionate about discovery-orientated research methodologies I am interested in teaching the philosophical and methodological underpinnings of research. As a social constructivist, adopting a relativist approach to human and non-human forms.

I am a feminist and LGBTQ+ activist, my work has covered domestic abuse perpetrators, children and young people, victims labelled 'high risk' and more recently the intersection of later life, gender, disability  and sexual identity

I work to facilitate survivor ‘voice’ and choice, I co-create enabling environments to promote the rights and responses of victim-survivors that fall outside ‘the public story of domestic abuse’.

An example of such a model is Dewis Choice ( 2013-2023), a dedicated intervention for older survivors of domestic abuse.

Dewis is the first global longitudinal study capturing the ‘lived experiences’ of victim-survivors aged 60 years and over. These data create resources which were highlighted a ‘good practice’ in a Public Health Wales briefing on COVID-19 and Violence for the World Health Organization, Europe. The team on Dewis contributed toward numerous consultation documents and guidance.

Our Team - Centre For Age Gender and Social Justice (dewischoice.org.uk) see below : ‘Transforming the response to domestic abuse in later life’ was a 4* Impact Case Study for the Research Excellence Framework 2021    Impact case study : Results and submissions : REF 2021

I am passionate about research methodologies that directly involve diverse stakeholders, with victim-survivors at the centre, who contribute towards the design, implementation, analysis and dissemination of research, capturing ‘lived experiences’ of co-collaborators, including   Dewis Choice Impact statement – The Domestic Abuse Act 2021 Statutory Guidance - Centre For Age Gender and Social Justice

I was awarded a Vice Chancellors Award for Exceptional Impact (2021-2022) for my work on Dewis Choice; a Blue-Sky award for community outreach research with young mums ‘safer spaces- night and day’ ; the Audrey Jones Award for feminist scholarship ‘Undertaking transformative research with victim-survivors of domestic abuse: A story of feminist praxis’ (2016); I was successful in my applications for the 2016 Welsh Crucible for Research Leadership and the 2019 Higher Education Fellowship ‘Inspiring Leadership’ cohorts in Wales. 

I work with a wide variety of partners across Wales, Scotland , England, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Partners are  Safelives; Older People's Commissioner for Wales; the End Violence Against Women Coalition and Solace Women’s Aid SOS Toolkit: Supporting Older Survivors – Solace Womens Aid

A large part of my work involved local and regional partners in Wales particularly the Violence Against Women Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence Regional Network Dyfed Powys.  

I am also part of the International Network Addressing Filial Violence : International Network Addressing Filial Violence | Monash