As we come to the end of the year, I wanted to provide the first update of the PhD project since making the website. Below is an overview of how the project has been progressing across the work packages. As a reminder, you can visit About the Project to see an overview of the three studies (two work packages – sorry I know it is confusing!) .
Umbrellas and Documents – Let’s talk work package 1
As far as work package one (WP1) goes, the team and I have made a good chunk of progress.
Study 1 – The Umbrella Review
Analysis is close to comepletion for the systematic review, with a couple of extra additions being added from a recent updated search. Findings plan to be shared in the next year or so, with a draft of an academic paper being close to finish! An abstract has also been submitted for the UK Public Health Sciences Conference being hosted in Newcastle in April 2026. Fingers crossed all things go well and we can share some systematic review outputs in the coming year…
Study 2 – The Document Analysis
The document analysis is also close to complete. The findings (which I find are eye opening – but I suppose I am bias!) have been presented at a number of meetings. Firstly, I had the privilge of attending the European Health Psychology Society Conference in August 2025, and travelling to the Netherlands for the very first time. I’ve added some photos of the trip below!
It was super exciting to present the findings of WP1b at the conference, as an Early Career Spotlight Talk, and I engaged in some really meaningful and insightful conversations around the findings and reflections on methods used.
I was also then lucky enough to have been asked to present the findings at the launch of the Maternity and Autism Research Group’s Best Practice Guidelines. I was hugely grateful for the opportunity, again, to use the findings as key background to why the production of these guidelines are so important and timely. You can check out the guidelines, along with the recording of my talk over on the MARG website: Guidelines | MARG
2026 also aims to be the year that I submit a draft of WP1b to an academic journal. This draft is underway, and I hope to provide further updates soon!
Analysing creative arts data – what could go wrong? An update on work package two
Work Package Two (WP2) is coming along nicely too, despite the sarcastic title! We have so far had excellent engagement in the longitudinal interviews, and hope to have completed data collection by early 2026. Not only is the data richer than bournville chocolate, but we have also had some super creative minds take part in this study. From crochet scarfs and cross-stitch, to photographs, poetry and painting, we have collected some fascinating pieces alongside people’s pregnancy and birth stories. To help me with analysing this relatively complex (but exciting) web of data, I have taken part in some training on the analysis method I plan to use – Narrative Analysis, with the social research association. Now that I have all the tools and knowledge ready- once data collection is complete it is go go go with transcribing, coding, analysing, and co-shaping wonderful narratives from real life experiences.
In terms of outputs for this work package, it is still early days. However, I have been kindly asked to present my PhD work at the North East Autism Research Group meeting in December (tomorrow as I write this) and I have chosen to share my reflections on this work package. I felt it important to share with other autism researchers, that you can co-create accessible materials for a study, be flexible in your approach to research engagement, and allow people to express themselves meaningfully, when speaking with under-served populations within the autistic community. By sharing these reflections, and some examples of my work (you can see these under Study Materials), I hope to encourage other researchers to think more widely (and creatively!) about how they can conduct research with autistic people, beyond traditional methods (survey, 1-1 interviews, focus groups).
Hopefully I will have updates next year regarding some findings, and be underway with writing and publishing some academic papers! But in the meantime, I need to get my head down and transcribe around 20 hours of interview data (such fun!).
Some other (but related) news
A wonderful colleague of mine, Verity Westgate, who I met through MARG has had a paper published on staff experiences of supporting autistic women and people in Community Perinatal Mental Health Teams. I had the honour of being a part of this work, and seeing a paper being published with my name on it, in a topic I am so passionate about, is super exciting. Hopefully more to come soon!
You can read the full paper here: “I ask them what autism means for them”: a qualitative study of staff experiences of working with autistic women and birthing people in community perinatal mental health teams – PubMed
Thanks for reading!
Signing off with a personal update – I became a mother of two fur babies in the last half of the year, which has helped greatly with rapport buidling during Teams call interviews. Big thanks to Edgar and Earl for helping me with participant retention!
