Dr Sarah Wallace is a senior research fellow at WIHSC and PRIME Centre Wales at USW, and co-chair of the Violence Against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (VAWDASV) Research Network Wales.

Sarah began her research journey at the University of South Wales; first completing a BSc Hons in Health and Social Care, before graduating in 2018 with her PhD. Prior to entering academia, Sarah worked as a frontline support worker within the third sector supporting women and men experiencing domestic abuse, and later trained as an Independent Domestic Violence Advisor (IDVA).

Sarah’s research expertise is within qualitative methodologies (including phenomenology and participatory approaches), and mixed methods. She is a trained Group Concept Mapping (GCM) facilitator, with developing skills and experience in Realist Evaluation.

Sarah’s subject expertise is within the field of VAWDASV. Her interest in this field spans across populations and the lifespan and the prevention, protection, and support for all. Her work in this area includes partnerships with third sector services to develop and evaluate programmes of support, curating resources for professionals (in the context of Covid-19) and updating social worker guidance for the Welsh context with Social Care Wales, and a collaborative GCM study to establish the VAWDASV Research Priorities for Wales. With USW colleagues, she is part of a of a 31-country international study, ‘IMproving Opportunities for primary Care and Advocacy for Family Violence’ (IMOCAFV) to develop via consensus the management of Family Violence (FV) in primary care settings.

Sarah’s associated research interests and strengths span across health and social care and she has led and supported a number of research projects and evaluations ranging in size and scope. Her work has included research with service users, carers and families, the social care workforce, and evaluating social prescribing interventions.

Sarah is currently supervising three PhD students, and an M.Phil. student. She sits within the Health, Care, and Wellbeing Research and Innovation Group at USW and is a member of the USW VAWDASV working group, the George Ewart Centre for Storytelling, and the All-Wales Ethnic Minority Research Advisory Group. 

More detail about Sarah Wallace’s publications and outputs can be found here.