About

Sarah Goulding is a PhD student at Heriot Watt University and an experienced social worker.

PhD Research
Sarah is researching deaf* representation in British children’s picture books. She is trying to find out if and how these can be used to support hearing parents to develop their understanding of their deaf child’s experience.

The majority of deaf children are born into hearing families who often have little knowledge of deafness, the challenges or potential their child might experience. Picture books are a common feature of childhood and can offer parents and children new ways of seeing deaf children and adults depending on how they are represented, the types of stories they are included in and the frequency of inclusion.

Sarah’s research aims to evaluate the way deaf characters are represented, the diversity within these representations and whether anything is missing from these books. Through interviewing hearing parents on their experiences Sarah aims to establish what adult co-readers can learn from these books and how effect this is.

Scottish Government Internship
From November 2024 to January 2025 Sarah completed a three month internship with the Equality and Social Justice Analysis Unit in the Scottish Government. She undertook research evaluating engagement with underreached families living with low incomes households, across eight system change, placed based initiatives. The final report can be read here https://bit.ly/3GNTWce

Social Work Experience
Sarah qualified as a social worker in 2013 and started working within adoption and fostering services in the charity and third sector. This included recruiting and assessing applicants to become foster carers and adopters; supporting them through the family finding process and placing children in their care; applying for adoption orders and supporting families post adoption. Sarah also enjoyed working with children within the family settings and in the children’s groups. Sarah is Level 1 Theraplay trained and Level 1 DDP trained.

In 2020 Sarah joined Deaf Action managing the social work team there. This was an adult social work service working with the deaf community across Edinburgh and the Lothians. This role involved managing a team of community care assistants and a social work student. Sarah has Level 3 British Sign Language.

From 2019 to 2024 Sarah was an independent panel member for West Lothian Council’s permanency panel. This involved making recommendations on the permanency decisions for children going through care proceedings in West Lothian.

*deaf is being used to encompass those who are deaf, deafened, hard of hearing, or a deaf user of British Sign Language