Dr Holly Taylor-Dunn joins the POP team

Dr Holly Taylor-Dunn joined Policing Organisation and Practice Team as a Lecturer in May 2021. She is part of the team designing and delivering the new Police Constable Degree Apprenticeship (PCDA) for new police officers, as well as contributing to the overall development of programmes under the Police Education Qualifications Framework (PEQF).

Holly has worked and researched in the area of domestic abuse for 20 years.  She initially worked for the police as a Domestic Abuse Officer, before moving to Women’s Aid, where she managed a number of community-based services for victim/survivors.  In 2014, Holly joined the University of Worcester where she led the Master’s Degree in Understanding Domestic and Sexual Violence.

Holly’s main research focus to date has been the policing and criminal justice response to domestic abuse, stalking and harassment.  Her PhD used the framework of Realist Evaluation (Pawson and Tilley, 1997) to explore the role of Independent Domestic Violence Advisors (IDVAs) in a Specialist Domestic Violence Court (SDVC) and their impact on successful prosecutions.  Holly has since worked on a number of research projects involving IDVAs and specialist domestic abuse services more widely.  In 2017, Holly was commissioned by the Home Office to lead a qualitative study with victims of stalking and harassment as part of the first Joint Criminal Justice inspection into these offences.  Following on from this, Holly was commissioned to evaluate a project in Northumbria which sought to address cyber stalking and harassment in the context of domestic abuse.

Holly has also researched the experiences of nurses and ambulance staff who have suffered domestic abuse and the support they received from their employer.  Holly’s research interests are centred around the policing of vulnerability (particularly in the context of domestic abuse, sexual offences and stalking and harassment) in addition to finding ways to support police officers who are affected by vicarious trauma, burnout and compassion fatigue as a result of regular exposure to these types of offences.

Outside of work, Holly enjoys open water swimming and running.  In 2018 she swam two miles of Lake Windermere to raise money for the Alzheimer’s Society.