Government Social Research
Amy Holmes
I work in the Offenders, Programmes and Interventions team in the Offending and Criminal Justice: What Works section in Research Development Statistics. Through my involvement in some very interesting research projects, and a lot of training, I have built on the skills and knowledge I brought from university.
My career progression is better than I would have expected it to be a year and a half after finishing my Msc. and I am lucky enough to work in research, in a supportive environment within the area I always wanted to.
A post within Research Development Statistics was first suggested to me during my MSc. course in Forensic Psychology. I wanted to complete research in the area of Offending Behaviour and Criminal Justice, and after applying for an post as Research Officer I was offered a position in the team to jointly conduct an evaluation into Intensive, Supervision & Monitoring schemes with adult persistent offenders. I've also been involved in other projects - collecting and analysing data, liaison with others inside and outside the Department, and dissemination.
I have been in this post for about a year and a half, and the project we started is drawing towards a close. Over the course of the project I have conducted a literature review, been a representative at policy and evaluation meetings, presented at conferences, conducted interviews with staff and offenders, taken a project through to publication, analysed both qualitative and quantitative data and much, much more. I am now involved with another two projects: the Real Women Programme - a process evaluation into the first female offending behaviour programme, and the General Offending Behaviour Programme Evaluation.