Dr Helen Atherton

Profile

I am a lecturer and nurse historian based in the School of Healthcare.

I am also a qualified nurse for people with learning disabilities and the co-editor of the internationally renowned textbook Learning Disabilities: Towards Inclusion.

My research interests focus mainly on the social history of people with learning disabilities. I have led and worked on projects with people with learning disabilities to raise public awareness of this history. This has included an oral history project exploring the lives of those who lived and worked at a long stay institution in East Yorkshire and the production of a short animation used in the education and training of health and social care professionals across the UK and beyond.

My doctorate explored the prevalence of eugenic attitudes amongst health and social care professionals; I write and speak about the dangers of eugenic thinking in contemporary society.

I initiated a project - Finding Ivy - a Life Worthy of Life as a way of both commemorating the lives of British born victims of Nazi atrocities and encouraging people to critically reflect on their own attitudes, beliefs and behaviours towards marginalised and devalued groups.

I have appeared on the BBC disability podcast “Access All”. I am also part of an international team of academics researching the lives of British prisoners of war used in Nazi led brain experimentation. My research was used in a BBC 4 podcast Shadow of War: A Tainted Anatomy.