Dr Sarah Elison

I am an Academic Psychologist by training and have a background in applied behavioural research, having previously worked in academic and clinical settings on both small-scale qualitative studies and large-scale randomised controlled trials (RCTs). I currently work in an industry setting as Research and Communications Manager at Breaking Free Online where we develop online, digital interventions to support people to recover from substance dependency. My particular areas of research interest are substance misuse, the recovery agenda, digital healthcare and the increasingly pressing social concerns around the ‘digital divide’. I have specifically developed the programme of research that I currently manage within my role at Breaking Free Online not only to contribute to the evidence-base around computer assisted therapy (CAT) for substance dependence, but also to contribute to the literature around substance misuse recovery and digital healthcare more generally. In the future I will be co-ordinating a number of large-scale studies, including RCT’s, to examine the effectiveness of Breaking Free Online in clinical and criminal justice settings and hope that the research we conduct will make a valuable contribution to understanding substance dependence and recovery in a wider sense.