My name is Ankita Mishra (amishra1@sheffield.ac.uk)and I am a PhD researcher in the Department of Psychology at the University of Sheffield.
My PhD research project focuses on understanding the challenges experienced by women from the minority ethnic communities in the UK during the pandemic, especially in their home lives and intimate partner relationships. I strongly believe that it is important to understand the concerns and challenges of the Black and minoritised survivors in order to inform the response and policy frameworks which otherwise tend to take a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach while addressing the issues of domestic abuse service provision for all the survivors of abuse. As we all know, the pandemic has exposed and exacerbated the already existing inequalities and a lot of work needs to be done to dismantle systemic barriers in order to mitigate the consequences in subsequent lockdown scenarios. That cannot happen without the voices and narratives of these women.
I have started with data collection for my first study. Specifically the objective of the present study is to explore the beliefs, attitudes, experiences and reporting of domestic abuses faced by these women, along with understanding their mental health, resilience, access to support and patterns of help seeking during the present lockdown.
To do so we are aiming to collect data from over 2000 women in the UK from the Black, Asian and Mixed ethnic groups, using an online survey.
I am seeking support from fellow VAWG researchers to help me reach out to the minority ethnic women (Black, Asian and Mixed ethnic groups) by sharing the link of the survey in your professional and personal networks and social media platforms. I would be highly grateful to you. All recorded responses of the participants will be treated with utmost confidentiality and will remain anonymous. The research has been ethically approved by the University of Sheffield Department of Psychology Research Ethics Committee (Ref. 038171).
Since we are using a snowball sampling strategy, it would be really helpful to pass on the link to as many women from the minority ethnic communities you are in touch with or could get me in touch with.
Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions. You can also find out more information about the research by clicking on the link above, which will take you to the information sheet about the survey.
This study is being supervised by Dr. Chantelle Wood (chantelle.wood@sheffield.ac.uk) and Dr. Jilly Gibson-Miller (jilly.gibson@sheffield.ac.uk) from the Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield. You can also contact them for further information, if needed.