Dr Jane Ndungu

About me:

I am a Wellcome Trust Research Fellow in the Department of Psychology, University of Exeter. My overarching research focus is on prevention of violence against women and girls (VAWG).

I am currently interested in the co-design of VAWG prevention interventions. Specifically, I am interested in piecing together the triumphs and pitfalls of VAWG prevention intervention co-development processes, to enable us to understand how to best employ co-development. If we understand what works, and doesn’t work, in the processes of VAWG prevention intervention co-development, we have a greater chance of creating more beneficial interventions that are closely reflective of the beneficiaries’ lived realities/contexts; and ultimately increased potential of achieving VAWG prevention interventions that work.

My current project involves working with a group of young, forced migrant women from Durban, South Africa to co-develop an intervention focused on VAWG prevention and poor mental health mitigation.

Previous work includes investigating experiences of Xenophobia, intimate partner violence and poor mental health amongst forced migrant women in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa; VAWG prevention intervention co-development processes with adolescents; and exploring trauma experience and symptomology across different contexts (such as urban vs rural dwelling) in Kenya.

I work closely with the Gender and Health Research Unit at the South African Medical Research Council.

• Violence against women and children
• Intervention co-development
• The nexus between PTSD, depression and VAWG

DPhil, Psychology