Jun 10, 2026 · 39 min · 10 segments
In this episode of Psychology and Stuff, host Alison Jane Martingano sits down with Dr. Neema Trivedi-Bateman, senior lecturer in criminology at Loughborough University and founder of the Compass…
Alison Jane MartinganoHostYeah, so tell me about how this has evolved now, this sort of second iteration of the Compass project.
If I'm understanding correctly, the second version is actually run by teachers in schools.
So what we did was we moved from this kind of youth centre community pilot work, and we realised that there would be some really big benefits to delivering a programme in schools.
And directly, you know, in response to what we were just discussing earlier, although children are often truant
the school system, more than in a community context, they are more likely to attend school.
And therefore, if we're delivering the intervention sessions during typical school hours, we are more likely to get that exposure and the dosage correct when it comes to the intervention exposure for the children.
And what we've done there is we've been able to move from research, our research team facilitating the programme.
Instead, this time it's school staff that are already known to the children who are delivering, receiving training from us, receiving our materials and then delivering the programme to children.
So it works slightly differently and there are some benefits to running it that way.
I think we've delivered about 14 randomized control trials at this stage.
So how does that shift it then? So I know you're saying from the pilot, you learned about the importance of these relationships and relationship building.
And now it's being delivered by teachers who probably have a closer relationship, but also kind of an authoritarian relationship as well.
Yeah, we absolutely have to do a bit of work in the initial stages to work with the senior leaders at the school to identify somebody who we think will be suitable with the qualities and characteristics that might work for delivering this type of programme.
we've managed to work together with the schools to pick some excellent, highly skilled facilitators.
So using teachers absolutely changes the dynamic quite significantly, or school staff, because they're not always teaching staff.
Sometimes it's, you know, care or support staff that are deemed to be really excellent for delivering a programme like this, for building the rapport with children in this kind of safe, confidential space where they might be talking about their own rule breaking and risk taking.
Yeah, so tell me about how this has evolved now, this sort of second iteration of the Compass project.
If I'm understanding correctly, the second version is actually run by teachers in schools.
So what we did was we moved from this kind of youth centre community pilot work, and we realised that there would be some really big benefits to delivering a programme in schools.
And directly, you know, in response to what we were just discussing earlier, although children are often truant
the school system, more than in a community context, they are more likely to attend school.
And therefore, if we're delivering the intervention sessions during typical school hours, we are more likely to get that exposure and the dosage correct when it comes to the intervention exposure for the children.
And what we've done there is we've been able to move from research, our research team facilitating the programme.
Instead, this time it's school staff that are already known to the children who are delivering, receiving training from us, receiving our materials and then delivering the programme to children.
So it works slightly differently and there are some benefits to running it that way.
I think we've delivered about 14 randomized control trials at this stage.
So how does that shift it then? So I know you're saying from the pilot, you learned about the importance of these relationships and relationship building.
And now it's being delivered by teachers who probably have a closer relationship, but also kind of an authoritarian relationship as well.
Yeah, we absolutely have to do a bit of work in the initial stages to work with the senior leaders at the school to identify somebody who we think will be suitable with the qualities and characteristics that might work for delivering this type of programme.
we've managed to work together with the schools to pick some excellent, highly skilled facilitators.
So using teachers absolutely changes the dynamic quite significantly, or school staff, because they're not always teaching staff.
Sometimes it's, you know, care or support staff that are deemed to be really excellent for delivering a programme like this, for building the rapport with children in this kind of safe, confidential space where they might be talking about their own rule breaking and risk taking.
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