Alison Osborne

Alison is a Senior Research Assistant in the Northern Hub for Veterans and Military Families Research at Northumbria University. Her research focusses on the life experiences of the Armed Forces Community with specific interests in well-being, family separation and identity. 

Alison is currently engaged in several projects: developing a peer support model for military bereaved families; a 4-year longitudinal study exploring the impact of a psychosocial intervention on the well-being of Danish military children; an exploratory study of the experiences of LGBT+ veterans affected by ‘the ban’.

Recently, Alison completed a PhD exploring the psycho-social impact of intermittent separation on geographically dispersed military families. This was a mixed methods project utilising a systematic narrative review, geospatial analysis, and semi-structured interviews with dispersed military family members.

Since joining the Northern Hub in 2016, Alison has been involved in a number of projects, including research on veterans’ reluctance to access help for alcohol problems; the health and social well-being of older veterans with limb-loss; the health and social care needs of the Armed Forces Community and military families’ experience of casualty notification.

Before working in the Northern Hub, Alison completed a BSc (Hons) in Psychology and MRes in Psychology at Northumbria University.