Fellow’s Profile
Beverley Samways
Fellow’s Profile
Beverley Samways
Intellectual disabilities and self-injury: trauma informed approaches
Fellowship
Themes
Focus
Innovating trauma-informed support for people with intellectual disabilities.
Countries
Fellowship year
2023
Supported by
Locality
West Midlands
Biography
I am the Founder of the consultancy Unique Connections, which exists to improve the lives of children and adults with intellectual disabilities who self-injure. The consultancy works with additional needs schools and care organisations to find bespoke relational, trauma-informed and emotionally literate ways forward with people presenting with entrenched self-injury and related concerns.
I have 16 years of professional experience supporting young people with severe learning disabilities, sensory loss and autism. I recently completed an ESRC-funded PhD at the University of Bristol, entitled Non-spoken stories: an ethnographic account of the emotional lives of three teenagers with severe learning disabilities who sometimes self-injured.
The purpose of my Fellowship is to discover the best trauma-informed approaches to supporting complex young people with severe intellectual disabilities, particularly those who self-injure or present with other complex behaviour. I hope that discovering best practice in this area can be translated into innovative, bespoke support for the education and care sector supporting young people with intellectual disabilities.
Disclaimer
All Reports are copyright © the author. The moral right of the author has been asserted. The views and opinions expressed by any Fellow are those of the Fellow and not of the Churchill Fellowship or its partners, which have no responsibility or liability for any part of them.
Disclaimer
All Reports are copyright © the author. The moral right of the author has been asserted. The views and opinions expressed by any Fellow are those of the Fellow and not of the Churchill Fellowship or its partners, which have no responsibility or liability for any part of them.