• Question: do you think your use of the prize money is going to change lives?

    Asked by anon-204623 to Sally, Lucy, Louise, James, David, Dan on 11 Mar 2019.
    • Photo: Dan Taylor

      Dan Taylor answered on 11 Mar 2019:


      Depends on how you define change lives. I’m not expecting anything radical but I do believe that young people deserve sex ed that’s based in good research, rather than on some kind of subjective morals. I want to be able to help kids who might be confused about their sexual orientation, or kids who’s confidence might be battered from unrealistic standards of physically on the internet. It’s important make sure that young people know that its their body, their choice, regardless of its shape or sexuality. I hope people can see that it’s an important message that needs to be spread 🙂

    • Photo: James Munro

      James Munro answered on 11 Mar 2019:


      Hey hatty,

      Thanks for the question, and for your other questions in the chat today 🙂

      There is a problem in the UK where the kids who go to university are much more likely to be from wealthy families and good schools. This isn’t as bad as it used to be, but it’s still a problem that I care strongly about dealing with. If we make it hard for less rich families to send their kids to university – then we miss out on so many brilliant minds. Being rich does not make someone smarter.

      So my use of the prize money is to pay for transport, time and advertising to a free science event for kids from the local (not very rich) area, where psychologists will demonstrate how to study the mind and the brain. I want them to know they are good enough to study at university if that is what they want.

      Thanks 🙂

    • Photo: Louise Rodgers

      Louise Rodgers answered on 11 Mar 2019:


      I would hope it would make a real difference to the children in the school I would purchase the equipment for – I think having equipment for hands-on science, like floating/melting/building/connecting/burying/burning/growing stuff is a much better way to learn than any worksheet.

    • Photo: David Chadwick

      David Chadwick answered on 11 Mar 2019:


      It will change the lives of those school kids who had thought that university was not for them, or thought they would not like it, or would feel out of place, etc, if the visit makes them change their minds and be enthused to come. The University of Kent already has an excellent reputation for attracting kids who normally would not be expected to go to university, to decide to come. It has a relatively new campus at Medway, which was specifically designed for widening access, and now attracts hundreds of new students a year. But schools do not have the finances to pay for the travel to visit open days. They have to ask the parents to pay for the school trip, and kids from poorer homes just do not have the spare cash that is needed. I will use the money to pay for the travel of those who cannot afford to visit.

    • Photo: Lucy Maddox

      Lucy Maddox answered on 11 Mar 2019:


      Hi Hatty! I’d use the prize money to devise a project together with some young people – some way of explaining to other young people what cognitive behavioural therapy is and why it’s useful. It could be animation, film, audio, a play, writing, a comic… I’d like young people to help me decide.
      I think young people today are under a lot of stress, and we know that mental health problems are really common, so the project would explain one way to help with this, and could be very useful to young people who don’t know about CBT and who are struggling with mental health problems.

    • Photo: Sally Tilt

      Sally Tilt answered on 11 Mar 2019:


      In a little way – I do hope that it will.

      I would use the money to buy the equipment to make a podcast, and hope to interview some of my forensic psychology colleagues so that they can explain some of the great work that they do.

      I’m hoping that it might better explain what happens in prisons, and what type of things help and what do not. Without good information about what is effective in changing behaviour, people might base their opinions on hunches or hearsay – this would provide a good opportunity to provide the evidence for what seems to work and what does not.

      Thanks for asking!

Comments