Dr Sarah Leonard

Research interests

Curent projects:

'The under-reporting of hate crime by university students: a mixed methods study to evaluate the perceived needs of students.'

- The project includes two cross sectional studies of University of Manchester students and employees:

a)       A survey of student experience of hate crime

b)      A survey of employee current training needs and knowledge gaps with regards to hate crime experience by students

and a series of semi-structured interviews and focus groups with students to explore perceived barriers to reporting hate crime. 

'Susceptibility to radicalisation in those with Autism Spectrum Disorder.'

- A qualitative study including a series of semi-structured interviews to identify ASD specific vulnerability and risk factors for radicalisation.  

'Engager: Developing and evaluating a collaborative care intervention for offenders with common mental health problems, near to and after release.'

 - A randomised control trial and process evaluation of the Engager intervention. 

https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/research/primarycare/engager 

Doctoral research:

'A comparative prospective cohort study of people transfered from prison to hospital under the Mental Health Act: their pathways and outcomes.'

 - A national prospective cohort study of people all prisoner-patients remitted to prison from 33 NHS medium secure services over a 6 month period. This project utilised mixed methodology and includes a one year follow-up of prison remittals in 58 prisons, alongside a qualitative individual interviews and a focus group study with forensic clinicians, exploring their experiences of treating transferred prisoners and remitting to prison.