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Dr Sarah Coombs
Senior Lecturer in Early Childhood Studies
Sarah has extensive experience of teaching both undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in Higher Education. She teaches a variety of modules across the childhood routes, predominantly focusing on the health and wellbeing of children, the impact of illness on children and families and the possibilities for intervention, family support and participation.
Sarah supervises undergraduate and postgraduate dissertations and teaches on the Graduate School programme for PhD students.
Research interest
Sarah’s research interests remain predominantly within the interdisciplinary field of Death Studies; focusing on what might be deemed the ‘sensitive’ or even ‘taboo’ topic of children and death. Sarah is interested in qualitative and participatory methods that seek to uncover children’s perspectives, stories and experiences in this area.
Books
Richards, S. and Coombs, S. (Eds) (Forthcoming 2021) Critical perspectives on research with children: Reflexivity, voice, interdependent agency and ethics, Bristol: Bristol University Press
Coombs, S. (2017) Young Peoples Perspectives on End-of-Life: Death, Culture and the Everyday, Palgrave Macmillan
Peer reviewed Journals:
Coombs, S. (2014) Deaths wears a T-Shirt: Listening to young people discuss the end of life, Mortality, 19(3), 284-30
Research reports:
Rawlings, V. & Coombs, S. (2016) Suffolk Young Peoples’ Health and Wellbeing Profiling Project 12-21, University Campus Suffolk iSeed with Suffolk County Council
Conferences:
The 14th International Conference, Death, Dying and Disposal, The University of Bath – Mythical creatures and playing amongst the dead. Co-Presenter, September 2019
The 1st International Story Telling Conference, University of Suffolk, - Children’s stories of death. Presenter, July 2018
The 13th International Conference, Death, Dying and Disposal (DDD)UCLAN – Magical spaces and where to find them. Presenter, September 2017
Hidden Harms Conference, University of Suffolk - Death wears a T-shirt! Adult assumptions of Hidden Harm and young people’s everyday relationship with death. Presenter, January 2017
British Sociological Society, Social Aspects of Death, Dying and Bereavement (DDB) Study Group – ‘Were Ok with death’ – Young people discuss the end-of-life. Presenter, November 2013
The 11th International Conference, Death, Dying and Disposal, The Open University Milton Keynes UK - Snowballs, Mad-Hatters, Shoeboxes and Stuff: A researcher’s experience of listening to young people talk about death. Presenter, September 2013
Children and Childhood’s Conference, University Campus Suffolk – Letting death out of the box. Presenter, July 2013
9th Global Conference: Making sense of death and dying, Salzburg Austria - Death wears a T-shirt: Conversations with young people about death and dying. Presenter, Nov 2012
4th International Conference, Celebrating Childhood Diversity, University of Sheffield UK – Beyond the boundaries. Co-Authored Symposium Presentation, July 2012
The 10th International Conference, Death, Dying and Disposal, Nijmegen Netherlands - Death wears a T-shirt: Conversations with young people about death and dying. Presenter, Sept 2011
University Campus Suffolk, Research Colloquium - Conversations with young people about death and dying – Initial findings and methodological approaches. Presenter, June 2011
Sarah is a member of:
The Early Childhood Studies Degree Network [ECSDN]
The British Sociological Society [BSS]
The British Psychological Society [BPS]
The Association for the Study of Death in Society [ASDS]
Royal College of Nursing [RCN]
Looking for something else?
 Postgraduate courses
Childhood and Family, Education |
 Undergraduate courses
Childhood and Family, Education |
 News
Childhood and Family, Education, Health, Politics and Social Science Monday, 23 January 2017, 17:00 |