Who we are

Ross Adamson is a researcher/practitioner in documentary filmmaking and digital storytelling. He has completed a Doctorate in Education at Bournemouth University on practical knowledge and documentary filmmaking.  He has collaborated on several digital storytelling projects (AHRC and EU funding).  He publishes narrative hermeneutic research in auto/biography, and documentary filmmaking and digital storytelling practices.

Inequalities in health, gender, sexuality and age

Feminism and new or socio materialist approaches to health and care

Feminist phenomenology, embodiment, mobile, visual and sensory methods

Arts, wellbeing and health

Community health and community nursing and equalities.

Josh Cameron's research interests are: mental health recovery; mental health and employment; meaningful work; resilience (especially where resilience is understood in a non-individualising systemic way); and, 'occupational capital' - a concept he developed from his doctoral research  comprising accessible external opportunities and supports for occupational participation, and internal capacities and skills required to access these. These interests are informed by an occupational and social justice perspective aimed at addressing health and wider inequalities. His research activity has involved a significant degree of collaboration with community/service user/'lived experience' expertise and with practitioners. Methodologically Josh approaches research from a critical realist position orientated to gaining explanatory insight into real world phenomena. He has most experience in using qualitative methods but has also adopted mixed methods approaches in some projects.

Recent projects include the Economic and Social Research Council funded Imagine Project - The social, historical, cultural and democratic context of civic engagement: imagining different communities and making them happen. In this Josh collaborated with ‘lived experience’ peer trainers from the Sussex Recovery College and occupational therapists from the Sussex Partnership Mental Health Trust to co-design, deliver and evaluate a ‘Building Resilience for Wellness and Recovery’ course for people facing mental health challenges.

He is currently leading, with his colleague Suna Eryigit-Madzwamuse, the research evaluation of the Big Lottery funded Headstart Blackpool 'Resilience Revolution' This programme supports the mental health of children and young people in Blackpool using a community development approach that embeds Resilient Therapy methods across the town. The programme draws on both resilience and systems theory to work alongside practitioners, carers, parents and young people to build a more resilience-based way of working using a common language. Josh and colleagues have collaborated with Beverley and Etienne Wenger-Trayner to use their Value Creation Framework to support the mixed methods evaluation of this project.

My current research projects examine sociocultural construction of risk, trust, and their management, public understanding of science and science communcation related to vaccines and 5G technology. A second strand of my research explores healthcare decision making amongs poor people in India.

I am currently collaborating with Discourse, Science, Publics Lab (Kieran O'Doherty) at University of Guelph, Canada on vaccine hesitancy in Ontario and with Dr Chetan Sinha Jindal GLobal University, Sonepat, India on strategic risk taking in health decisions amongs poor people in India.

My background is in the field of Social Psychology and my own research involves the study of groups, falling into two main areas: crowd behaviour and collective resilience.

My main body of interest is explaining how people behave in crowds and I am part of a group of Social Psychologists who seem to spend a lot of their time overcoming the classic myths associated with collectives, as crowds often behave much better than they are usually given credit for! My own particular area of interest is mass emergency behaviour and how this influences disaster planning and response guidelines. What we are increasingly finding is that communities affected by emergencies are often much more resilient to adversity than was previously expected, and this has profound implications for emergency policy and planning. I have recently been applying what we know about emergency behaviour to the COVID-19 pandemic, and my current research is looking at community mutual aid and social support in the South East during the lockdown March- May 2020  

Following on from this, I am also interested in looking at how people can come together if they have a shared experience of adversity, and how this collective resilience might also help mitigate the effects of exposure to stress. I have explored the emergence of collective resilience in a variety of diverse groups, such as Nurses, Paramedics, and young people dealing with the everyday stresses of growing up.

I have 22 years experience of working within child and adolescent mental health services as a mental health nurse and clinical nurse specialist. My work is influenced by consideration of the therapeutic milieu, family and wider systems, relational, creative, cognitive and behavioural therapies. I am curious as to what is happening at the intersections of children and young peoples lives and the contribution that this has towards a culture within which  good mental health,  emotional wellbeing and social justice are held as important.  Consequently, I am interetsed in research that uses a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods of enquiry to understand interactions between social mechanisms, expressions of mental health, resilience and social justice.

Isobel Creed is a Research Commnications Officer. She is engaged in research in the field of digital storytelling and has collaborated on a number of projects including Silver Stories, an EU funded project with six European partners, and with Ross Adamson: Moving Stories with Blatchington Mill School, Hidden Voices with Zap Art and Sussex Prisoners Families and Reading on Screen with the University of Bournmouth.

My research predominantly focuses on the political and social role of football fans. This includes the positive affect fans can have in challenging discrimination in football, and helping local communities and refugees. This invariably brings fans into conflict with the various regulatory bodies, such as football federations, governments and the police. Understanding the wider political economy of football helps situate these conflicts in their wider context. I supervise PhD students on projects related to political economy of sport, poltiical activism in football, anti-racism and anti-discrimination in sport, and the role sport can play in supporting refugees and migrants.

Natalie combines epidemiological methods for health services research with a critical approach and qualitative methods. Her interests include the interface between sexual and reproductive health with psychosocial issues, public health, community delivery of sexual health interventions, Point of Care Testing for STIs, problematic substance use and anti-microbial resistance (AMR). Methodologically she is interested in screening tool development, clinical prediction modelling, development and evaluation of complex interventions, the evaluation of public involvement in research, and researching disenfranchised populations. Natalie has been developing a critical epidemiology approach to sexual health research and more recently Trauma and Resilience Informed Reearch Principles and Practice (TRIRPP). You can read more about TRIRPP here http://blogs.brighton.ac.uk/trirpp/.

I m a social scientist with a background in human development, family studies, educational science and psychological counselling.

My research aims to promote healthy cognitive and psychosocial development, improve mental health and wellbeing and increase quality of life for all children and young people but especially for those who are disadvantaged because of social or biological challenges.

My research is interdisciplinary, sitting at the interface between developmental psychology, education, and public health. It covers the period from birth to young adulthood with a focus on individual, social, cultural and wider systemic risk and protective mechanisms. I take an ecological systems perspective in my research which highlights implications for research, practice and policy directly for children and young people, and also for systems around them. These include families (e.g., family functioning); schools (e.g., whole school approaches); services (e.g., workforce development), and communities (e.g., social climate and culture change).

I am interested in all areas of research with children and young people that seek to investigate why some individuals do better in life (as assessed by developmental, mental health, wellbeing or quality life outcomes) whilst some others continue to have difficulties under the conditions of social and/or biological disadvantage. Under this umbrella, the two pillars of my current research are how these differences can be predicted by earlier experiences through longitudinal cohort studies and how difficulties can be prevented by early intervention through programme development and evaluation.

Corporate Social Responsibility

Corporate Social Responsibility Communication

Sustainability 

Responsible Marketing

I am a social and health psychologist with interests in health and well-being and how identity processes are related to these. My research focuses, firstly, on health behaviour change and, secondly, on reducing inequality in educational settings through interventions known to reduce stereotype threat.

My research interests include:

• Applying self-affirmation theory as an intervention in health
• Narrative health information
• Identity-related process in understanding stereotype threat
• Applying self-affirmation theory to buffer against stereotype threat
• Community-led research
• Health and educational inequality

Engaging Design and Making Research:

Designed products, spaces, services and systems pervade every part of our lives. The world is awash with ‘stuff’  - Design has ‘made it’. However in times of ecological crisis, environmental pollution, social and political uncertainty and economic disparity design stands simultaneously as both disease and cure. 

I am interested in how designing and making contributes to positive, public persuasion, sustainable storytelling, community engagement, culture shift and behaviour change beyond delivering the next iteration of homogenous mobile phone. Design has agency and is being engaged as a tool and means to address issues of our time. Moreover design is about engagement – through potent, product propaganda, meaningful, material messaging and critical, craft campaigns, designers and makers are utilising the powerful language of materials, objects and products and the ubiquity of services and systems to change behaviour, provoke protest and empower people.

Designers and makers of diverse types are dispensing with disciplinary traditions and forming new alliances, promoting civic engagement, mass participation and clean growth, creating tools for accessible exploitation, community activism and more virtuous circular economies. Post disciplinary methods see the rethinking of material manipulation, techno-crafting, distributed manufacturing and open-sourcing. Some of our most pressing issues have re-awakened design with the critical concern and purpose that once defined it and artists, designers and makers can turn these issues into opportunities for positive intervention and  ethical economic development that integrates more symbiotically with our eco-system.

My research interests lie in seeking to bridge the disjuncture between climate change science, water resources management practice and local articulations and experiences of changing water environments. My work is critically engaged with understanding how developed economies organize and manage their freshwater resources with regards to transitioning towards sustainable futures in the context of climate change. At heart my research explores why climate change narratives are still failing to resonate with most citizens, and are still not embedded within organisational praxis, and seeks to determine what approaches may close these gaps in order to support transitions towards sustainable futures. Inherent to this line of questioning are explorations of emergent forms of citizenship, discourses of governance and the links between landscape, taskscape and community within the late capitalist era. I draw on the work of Karen Bakker, Noel Castree, Eric Swyngedouw, Neil Adger and Tim Ingold to undertake empirical qualitative fieldwork which interrogates the political, cultural and physical intersections which co-create our sense of place, and our intimate, immediate relationship with our water environments

My work centres on how peer relationships can contribute to the development of psychological resilience in the face of complex challenges to mental health and wellbeing, with a particular orientation to lived experience. My research aims to identify, understand and promote the contributions of informal social relationships and practices, especially as these arise in resistance to or as consequence of broad social risks (such as austerity, poverty, stigma, discrimination, colonial legacy, and prevalence of harmful substances). While this may sound grim, my work consistently engages with the strength, humour, support and lightheartedness that can be wrought through social connection.

While I am very much a (critical) psychologist, I believe that successfully engagement with the meanings, opportunities and adaptive benefits of social connection often requires thoughtful inter- and multi-discipinary perspective. For example, my current research involves working with colleagues in public health, media studies, and rehabilitation services. This ESRC/AHRC funded GCRF project is in collaboration with the University of Leeds, Mind India, NIRMAAN Rehabilitation Institute and the Hope Foundation, and uses participatory photography and filmmaking to explore resistance and resilience to problematic substance use among young people in Assam, India. Previously I collaborated with the Overseas Development Institute to draw lessons on psychological resilience for practitioners and researchers working in climate change and humanitarian disaster response. I have also worked with a counselling psychologist to explore the lived experience of peer support in a queer community pub.

I have worked with adults, young people and adolescents facing challenges from alcohol and substance use, socioeconomic vulnerability, and discrimination based on their LGBTQIA+ identity. I primarily use qualitative methods these days, including descriptive and interpretive phenomenological analysis, thematic analysis, and visual methods, but I use non-experimental quantitative methods, too. 

My work is interdisciplinary and I work closely with evidence bases and colleagues from psychology, sociology, social anthropology, community development, education, social work, psychiatry and nursing. All of my research is co-productive, and as the Academic Director of the Community University Partnership Programme (CUPP) I have expertise in applying insights from research within the context of Communities of Practice (CoP). CoPs bring people with a shared passion together across, not only different agencies and disciplines, but also organisational forms and status boundaries, including service users and their carers. I am passionate about using research insights to inform practice developments and vice versa.

I have published widely on health and social care services to disadvantaged children, their families and their supporters, especially in relation to fostering and adoption to midwifery and health visiting and in relation to the concept of resilience. I have also published work on the development of community university partnership programmes. All of my work results in practical applications. Most recently I have been supporting the implementation of my co-developed resilience approaches to mental health across a whole town, funded to the tune of £12million by the National Lottery Community Fund. Blackpool UK is the pilot site for what we are calling a ‘Resilience Revolution’. A key feature of this is an exciting co-productive research programme, by, with and for young people.

Debbie has a long-standing interest in how people learn from experience and in the workplace, and how knowledge and skills can be acquired and recognised. This includes the lived experience of people and communities to inform health and care curricula content, teaching, assessment and evaluation.

More recently, Debbie's interests as a qualitative researcher have focused on co-production embedded within community development, social movements and resilience. Her fellowship work includes exploration of the co-productive element of engaging communities for the newer integrated care partnerships for health and care and the implications for social policy. Debbie's fellowship project, which is ESRC-funded and entitled 'Conceptualising patient and public engagement and involvement (PPEI) for commissioning and designing health and care services as situated learning' is part of the Centre of Resilience for Social Justice research portfolio. 

In the last decade, Phil has researched and developed the innovative longitudinal case based method: Dynamic Pattern Synthesis (DPS). This is designed for comparing changes in small groups of cases over time. For example, comparing the trajectories of countries, regions or local authorities. The aim of the method is to maxmise the understanding of data complexity in longitudinal quantitative research. The next research phase is to develop the method for larger samples.  The theoretical basis of the method is grounded in complexity theory and explained in the 2018 book: Social Synthesis: Finding Dynamic Patterns in Complex Social Systems ( Routledge).

I am interested in all areas of resilience research and practice relating to building resilience as, with and for people who have lived experience of adversity, social inequalities and disadvantage. Our work takes a social justice approach to building resilience, taking into account families, schools and wider communities in terms of resilience building, and developing community and professional practices based on our research on Beating the Odds and Changing the Odds for marginalised people.

An important aspect of our research and practice is co-production, for example co-researching with young people, parents/carers and adults with lived experience, and other community partners. This includes all aspects of the research process, from the initial scoping of ideas, through bid writing, conducting the research and analysing results, to dissemination of results through co-producing books and co-presenting at conferences. Whilst not always easy or straightforward, co-production is highly important and has multiple benefits for all co-researchers (for example skills development) and ensures that findings and outputs are meaningful, relevant and useful.

I am currently part of The Resilience Revolution, a social movement which is being piloted through a whole town test and learn programme, delivering lasting change to disadvantaged young people in the town of Blackpool, through a successful Big Lottery HeadStart funding bid. The Resilience Revolution brings together the young people of the town with senior leaders, practitioners, parents/carers, managers, academics, community groups from the voluntary sector, police, health, and schools, under the leadership of Blackpool Council, to develop a resilient Blackpool, one where its nearly 11,000 young people, “see the difference, feel the difference and are the difference.”

As part of a complex and passionate partnership between our Centre of Resilience for Social Justice, social enterprise Boingboing and HeadStart Blackpool, led by Blackpool Council and supported by the UK’s National Lottery Community Fund, we’re now organising the world’s first International Resilience Revolution Conference 30-31 March 2022. The conference is being co-designed and co-facilitated by various members of the Resilience Revolution, including young people and parents/carers, who are eager to share their expertise with the world; from sharing stories of hope to challenging inequalities within systems. Akin to the whole town approach to resilience in Blackpool, everybody involved in development will have a role in making the conference a positive, innovative and exciting event to be part of.

Previous research projects I have been involved with include Building resilience through community arts practice: a scoping study with disabled young people and young people facing mental health challenges, and The Imagine Programme - the social, historical, cultural and democratic context of civic engagement: imagining different communities and making them happen. Many of our research outputs are available to download for free from the Boingboing website, and include co-produced books, films and resources for schools.I am also interested in lived experience of autism, community-university partnerships, communities of practice, cognitive psychology, psychophysiological indices of recognition memory, eye-tracking and EEG.

I am interested in community based and participative approaches to health care research. I have a particular interest in rights based/critical research based in low and middle income environments/ contexts, or involving aspects of health care that are marginalised or stigmatised, such as women’s health. I also have an interest in educational research, particularly of a qualitative or social science design, notably; (auto)ethnography, appreciative inquiry and action research to address such professional issues as professional identification and the cultural and social aspects of physiotherapy practice. I have supported many MSc students to completion of their degree and have been part of PhD teams.

Emma-Louise Jay’s research interests lie on the interface between psychological medicine and philosophy. She wrote her mixed-methods PhD on depersonalization at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London after completing her MSc. In the Philosophy of Mental Disorder at the same university writing her thesis on the same syndrome.

From 2013 – 2021 Emma lived and worked in Colombia where she took on the role of as post-doctoral psychologist at a leading creative arts university in Medellín – La Colegiatura Colombiana. There she co-developed a research centre focusing on research projects relating to the science of creativity, how we understand identification, and efforts towards developing social leader-led peace efforts in Colombia in the context of the 2016 Colombian peace accord. She also authors an imaginative blog which focuses mainly on issues relating to the Colombian political climate.

At the University of Brighton, Emma has taken on the role of Course Leader for the (Applied) Psychology program intake year (level 4), and also leads the module SS572 on Key Theoretical Foundations to Counselling and Psychotherapy. In this role she is enjoying teaching about the many different schools that inform the field of psychological medicine cross-culturally. She would like to broaden awareness of less-known therapies such as ‘Morita therapy’ and ‘Logotherapy’ in her UK teaching.

Emma’s research interests include existential psychology and psychotherapy, phenomenology, German idealism, dissociation, psychological medicine, critical psychology, psychoanalysis, hypnotherapy, the history of psychiatry, cross-cultural psychology and psychiatry, and most recently, political theory. She is the author of several peer-reviewed articles, a blog, and a body of narrative non-fiction, poetry and short stories.

Affiliations:

The University of Brighton’s Centre of Resilience for Social Justice (CRSJ)

Helen Johnson is a Principal Lecturer in Psychology and Co-Director of the Centre for Arts and Wellbeing, working at the intersection of critical social science, community psychology and arts-based/led inquiry.  She researches in 3 related fields: (i) innovative, arts-based research, with a particular focus on participatory poetic inquiry (ii) applications of the arts to support individual/community health and wellbeing and (iii) spoken word communities and practices. 

Helen is a social scientist with a background in Psychology and Sociology, and a spoken word artist with over 20 years' performing experience.  Her ground-breaking, cutting edge research is united by an interest in the arts, particularly spoken word and creative writing, as transformative means through which to enhance individual and community wellbeing, build critical resilience and transform the ways in which academics work with and for communities, particularly amongst those groups who are marginalized and excluded within wider society.  Helen is the founder of the 'collaborative poetics' method and network, which use participatory, arts-based research to explore/communicate the lived experiences of communities and individuals, and support the development of critical resilience.  She is Co-Director and Creative Methodologies lead for the Centre for Arts and Wellbeing, facilitator of the PGR Creative Methodologies Group, and an active member of the Centre of Resilience for Social Justice.   

Helen has received funding for her research from the Independent Social Research Foundation, National Centre for Research Methods and National Institute for Health Research, as well as undertaking numerous consultancy contracts with community organisations/groups, local Government and charities.  Her research has received international recognition, and she has set up productive working relations with scholars and artists across Canada (e.g. at McGill and Concordia Universities) and the U.S. (eg. at Louisiana State University).

Her current research includes:

• The use of participatory, arts-based research (collaborative poetics) to improve health pathways, wellbeing and resilience for people living with invisible, chronic, contested conditions
• Improving the visibility, take-up and impact of social prescribing programmes in Sussex
• Everyday creativity and decolonisation
• LGTBQI+ friendships and community support

I joined the Centre for Learning and Teaching, now the Learning and Teaching Hub, at the University as a Research Officer in 2008 and became a Research Fellow in 2013. My role mainly involves leading and conducting research into the experiences and percpetions of students and staff in HE relating to different aspects of learning, teaching and assessment. This work helps to contribute knowledge in the field of HE pedagogic research; disseminate good practice; and enhance the student experience at the university and across the sector.  I also teach research methods on the PGCAP and am a member of the Learning and Teaching Hub research ethics panel. Previously, I was a teacher of modern languages in secondary education. My qualifications include an MA in Marketing and an MA in Language, the Arts and Education. I am currently studying for a PhD exploring the influences of academic, professional and personal relationships and life events on part-time PhD students' learning journeys in UK universities in changing times, adopting a narrative methodology.

As a researcher in the Learning and Teaching Hub, my work has often focused on the experiences of first year and international students in relation to student engagement, retention and success. In this context, I co-led qualitative research at UoB as part of the UK wide What Works project, which adopted an Action Research methodology incorporating Appreciative Inquiry methods. I was also a member of the research team on the HEFCE funded Changing Mindsets project and in 2017/18 led a qualitative study focusing on the influences of Changing Mindsets on students' and staff experiences of learning, teaching and success at the UoB.  I have acquired external funding for the following research projects, including: UKCISA to conduct research exploring the influences of the international foundation year on first year international undergraduates' experiences in UK universities; HEDG to conduct research into Educational Development in the United Kingdom; the HEA to produce a research synthesis relating to on-line support for academic writing in HE; and BAICE to convene a syposium to facilitate local cross-sector networking and discusssion among international doctoral students and supervisors. Currently I am co-leading the Evaluation of the impact of the Inclusive Practice Partnerships Scheme at the University, focusing on Decolonising the Curriculum on students' experiences and achievement. 

Adopting a socio-ecological approach to the theory and practice of resilience, my research interests include investigating individual, familial and contextual risk and promotive/protective factors linked to the well-being and development of youth with a translational agenda. This includes informing policy decision-making about the need and strategies to develop effective early-stage interventions and policies to promote resilience in youth, families, and communities.  I have extensive experience in using quantitative methods, and in some projects, I have also used mixed methods approaches. I am particularly interested in conducting interdisciplinary research projects co-produced with community partners. 

I am interested in research involving children with developmental delays, sensory integration (SI) difficulties, and / or social and emotional challenges.  I have a particular interest in the use of narrative as a means of exploring the lives of children and in the use of visual methods as a means of gathering and presenting data.

My other areas of interest include educational theory, outcome measurement, and Occupational Science.

Barbara’s primary interest lies in mental health research and approaching mental health problems in a holistic way, considering a wide range of experiences of individuals. She is passionate about preventing mental health problems and improving mental health services, interventions and outcomes for service users and their families. 

She conducts translational and co-productive mental health research, focusing on psychosocial approaches to prevention and treatment of mental health problems in young people and adults. Her research extends to areas of personalised psychological interventions and mental health care, personal and meaningful outcome assessment, social prescribing, psychosocial determinants of health, health inequalities, co-production through community-university partnership and taking a social justice approach to promoting resilience and mental wellbeing and preventing mental health problems.

Marina is an internationally renowned policy, planning and sustainable development expert and Professor of Tourism and International Development at Brighton School of Business and Law, which is an Affiliate Member of the UN World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO).

She is a geographer with a background in economics, with significant experience of high-quality research, consultancy, PhD supervision, teaching and curriculumm development.

Since 2017, she has been playing a key strategic role as Academic Lead for the University’s Responsible Futures’ Research and Enterprise Agenda, an initiative aimed at fostering innovation through impactful  interdisciplinary research and consultancy collaborations, at local, national and international level.

She has advised on numerous international cooperation and research assignments funded by International Development Organisations (IDOs) such as: The World Bank, the European Union, The UN (UNESCO, UNIDO, UNWTO), the Commonwealth Secretariat, National Ministries and Tourism Boards, Regional Development Agencies and NGOs. Such work has provided the basis of 2 REF2014 and REF2021 highly rated Impact Case Studies. Examples of projects undertaken are also available here. 

In 2018 she was appointed as REF2021 panelist for UOA C24: Sport, Tourism and Leisure. 

She is known globally for her excellence in leading and collaborating with multi-disciplinary, multi-stakeholder and multi-cultural teams and for her commitment to generating new knowledge on ways in which tourism can play a key role in sustainable development by stimulating local economies, conserving the environment, developing peoples and changing lives.

Her research spans across 3 main areas, including: 

- Innovation, responsible entrepreneurship and sustainability in tourism - i.e. British Council project on Innovationa for African Universities;  circular economy, contemporary arts and community development, contemporary arts for sustainble development in Africa.

- Policy, Planning and Governance - i.e. master-planning; training needs analysis and capacity building; responsible leadership.

- Development and Impact - i.e. impacts assessments of IDOs' interventions; monitoring and evaluation; participatory research methods; and niche (tourism) product development.

My research interests are driven strongly by a social justice agenda, along with a desire for research to be collaborative and participatory with demonstrative social impact which ultimately tackles disadvantage and inequalities in health.

I am interested in all areas of research relating to public health and health promotion theory, policy, and practice, especially with an international/global focus. Areas of specific interest and expertise relate to three key areas:

1. Sexual health and sexual orientation
2. Mental and physical health inequalities
3. Parenting (including fatherhood, breastfeeding, and young parents).

Current research projects:

• WHO CV-19: Health systems analysis and evaluations of the barriers to availability, utilization and readiness of sexual and reproductive health services in COVID-19 affected areas.
• WHO ProSPeRero: Project on Sexually Transmitted Infection Point-of-care Testin - Clinic based evaluation of SD BIOLINE HIV/Syphilis Duo (Alere) and DPP® HIV-Syphilis Assay (Chembio) for the screening of HIV and syphilis in men who have sex with men in the STI screening facilities of Brighton and Hove, United Kingdom (UK).
• Health4LGBTI; Italy and UK health professional training for psychiatry.
• Investigating the impact of Covid-19 on local communities within East Sussex.
• A review of alcohol use amongst gender and sexual minorities

Previous research projects:

European/International:

• ESTICOM: European Surveys & Trainings to Improve MSM Community Health project. European Commission. Lead for WP6 (ECHOES Survey).
• Health4LGBTI: reducing health inequalities experienced by LGBTI people. European Commission. Lead for WP1 & WP2
• HEPCOM:Preventing obesity among children and young people.
• Everywhere in Japan: HIV prevention for Men who have Sex with Men
• SIALON II: Capacity building in combining targeted prevention with meaningful HIV surveillance among men who have sex with men
• SODEMIFA: Addressing the social determinants of health: Multilevel governance of policies aimed at families with children
• DAIWA: A feasibility study to explore the European Everywhere framework in Japan
• ACTION-FOR-HEALTH: Reducing health inequalities - preparation for action plans and structural funds projects
• GRADIENT: Tackling the Gradient - applying public health policies to effectively reduce health inequalities amongst families and children
• H-CUBE: HBV-HCV-HIV- Three different and serious threats for European young people. A network to study and face these challenges in the EU
• EVERYWHERE Project: A European multi-sectoral network for the prevention of HIV/AIDS for men having sex with men
• TEP: Health Promotion International – Transatlantic Exchange Partnership: EU-Canada
• ECHIM European Community Health Indicator Monitoring Project
• CEIHPAL Canadian-European Initiative for Health Promotion Advanced Learning: EU-Canada
• PHETICE: Public Health Education and Training in an Enlarging Europe
• DETERMINE: EU Consortium for action on the socio-economic determinants of Health
• ENGENDER: Inventory of good practices in Europe for promoting gender equity in health

Local/national:

• Best Practice in Corporate Occupational Health
• Diabetes UK Community Champions Project Evaluation (DUKCC).
• Exploring a whole-system intervention to improve mental health and wellbeing in schools.
• Evaluation of Care Navigation as part of the Right Person First initiative (CANE - Care Navigation Evaluation).
• FuelPre (Fuel Poverty Reduction Evaluation). Evaluation of the NHS Hastings & Rother Clinical Commissioning Group Healthy Homes Programme.
• Peas Please Veg City project. Listening First: ‘Veg on a Budget’Evaluation of the Education, Training, Volunteering & Employment (ETVE) Project for People Living with HIV (PLWHIV).
• Older people living with HIV in residential care homes. Extension to the Education, Training, Volunteering & Employment (ETVE) project.
• A better understanding what makes for effective conversations about alcohol between parents & their 15-17 year olds. Drinkware.
• Healthy Hastings & Rother Programme: Developing an evaluation methodology. Hastings & Rother CCG.
• Engaging fathers to support breastfeeding
• Engagement with young people to inform health improvement commissioning for children, families and schools in East Sussex
• Analysis of the Better Beginnings consultation in East Sussex
• Engaging and supporting fathers to promote breastfeeding: A concept analysis
• An evaluation of services for young people in East Sussex: FE nurse provision at schools and colleges, pulse innov8, and the young men’s health worker service
• The perspectives of fathers on the development of a breastfeeding support pack
• Understanding the service needs of routine and manual smokers working on building sites in Tower Hamlets
• Fathers’ views on breastfeeding in Brighton and Hove
• The Sussex LGBTU Training and Development Research Partnership
• The West Sussex LGBTU Youth Research Project and LGBTU Launch Event
• Review of Brighton and Hove WHO Phase IV Healthy City Programme
• The effectiveness of an innovative digital-Story intervention aimed at reducing binge drinking among young people
• Evaluation of fpa’s ‘Speakeasy’ course for parents
• Supporting young fathers: examples of promising practice
• Promoting health and emotional wellbeing: accredited training for supported housing staff working with young people
• Communication and supervision about alcohol in families
• Determinants of sport and physical activity amongst young women: a secondary analysis
• Evaluation of the community sport and enhanced PESSCL pilot programme,
• Speakeasy parenting fund evaluation: supporting professionals working with young people around sex and relationships

• Social inequality and mental distress
• Critical community psychology
• Informal therapeutic spaces and settings
• Statactivism and academic activism
• Multi-stakeholder capacity building action-research in communities
• Care and young people with complex needs

I am interested in developing a theoretical perspective on learning that takes as a fundamental tenet that we are essentially social beings. Even when we are by ourselves, we borrow from our languages and cultures to form thoughts and give meaning to the world. Learning theory is important because it guides how we recognize and support learning. The social learning theory I have been working has influenced research and practice in many disciplines and has inspired organizations across sectors to adopt new approaches to learning.

Research blog: https://makingsenseofmakingsense.tumblr.com/

Researchgate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Gemma_Williams19

Twitter: @DjzemaLouiz

About

Gemma Williams is an SCDTP ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow in the Centre for Resilience and Social Justice at the University of Brighton and an Associate with the National Development Team for Inclusion. 

Gemma completed her PhD in Linguistics PhD in 2021 at University of Brighton, where she investigated communication between autistic and non-autistic speakers from the persepctive of cognitive linguistics: largely influenced by 'relevance theory'.

Gemma has taught on the Text Design: Style and Genre module in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences here at UoB and held a short-term postdoctoral research post at York St John University supporting a small research project looking at 'flow states' in the context of autistic ways of being. 

Prior to beginning her PhD course, Gemma taught English as a Foreign Language for eight years, latterly focusing on Business English. This led to her completing a Masters in ELT (English Language Teaching) at the University of Sussex where her research interests included teacher cognition, Intercultural Communicative Competence and English as a Lingua Franca. Gemma also spent several years as a recording and internationally touring musician. A piece of Gemma's autoethnographic creative writing from her PhD thesis, 'We're All Strangers Here', was awarded Honorable Mention in the Society for Humanistic Anthropology 2019 Ethnographic Fiction and Creative Nonfiction Prize, and she has a short story 'm a r a c a' published in 'Stim: An Autism Anthology' (Unbound, 2020). 

ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship

Gemma's present fellowship has three planned outputs:

(1) A series of short animated videos sharing, explaining and responding to the empirical finding of her PhD research, co-produced with local autistic artists via Figment Arts (Lancing). 

(2) A set of co-produced practice and policy guidelines / recommendations for NHS healthcare staff around 'cross-neurotype communication' (i.e. between autistic and non-autistic people), created by a convened stakeholder group. 

(3) A general readership monograph exploring autistic and cross-neurotype communication from the perspective of cognitive linguistics

Dr. Julia Winckler's research sits across multiple strands:

• Photographic Archives, Memory & Migration

• Reactivating Archives through Artistic Interventions

• Photography and Critical Pedagogy

Julia's research investigates archival traces within the context of collective memory and migration narratives. Her key research question probes how neglected archival sources can reveal forgotten histories of great significance to our understanding of the present. Applying a creative and interpretive photographic approach, using photographs as tools to think about historical experience, multiple articulations of memory and meaning are expressed, with the aim of generating new academic knowledge. The author Ben Okri has described 'the artist [as] a conduit through which lost things are recovered' (2005). Julia's research methodology considers archival research as a material, embodied practice. Through extensive investigation in archives, she gathers materials and maps out a strategy and approach. She then travels to the sites that have historical significance for each project.

Through reactivation and visualisation using photography as the key medium, past memories are reframed and resituated in the present. Combining an archaeological with a genealogical approach, traces are documented; their significance to the present assessed, as some of the historical functions are lost or no longer important. The genealogical approach necessitates an investigation that starts in the present, a retracing of the journey, that is physical and experimental, setting up encounters and dialogues. Lost and recovered narratives have been a key theme of Julia's work to date. Memory and migration narratives of emigration (Two Sisters), exile and loss (Traces), exploration (Retracing Heinrich Barth), displacement (Leaving Atlantis), expedition/peregrination (My Canadian Pilgrimage) and interwar home-making (Fabricating Lureland)  have been visualized and probed using the language of photography. These projects have been disseminated through public exhibitions, at conferences, exhibition catalogue publications and public engagement workshops, as well as informing Julia's teaching practice.

Julia has undertaken extensive work with and within communities to enable broader access to personal cultural heritage amongst disadvantaged areas and demographics. She has sought to improve inclusivity of knowledge production and to reanimate disconnected or underdeveloped narratives and histories. Oscillating between photographic and archival research, she uses photography as a medium through which collective memories can be reconstructed and given a renewed cultural presence.

LGBT+ Drinkaware

Principal Investigator (PI) for a systematic scoping review of alcohol use amongst gender and sexual minority people with Prof Catherine Meads, Prof Nigel Sherriff and Dr Kay Aranda funded by Drinkaware. 

Narrating Difference

The Narrating Difference study explores the experiences of sex and gender variance in UK healthcare and legal settings with Dr Evan Hazenberg (PI) and Dr Maria Moscati.

Health4LGBTI

Italy and UK health professional training for psychiatry.

Health4LGBTI

"Health4LGBTI: Reducing health inequalities experienced by LGBTI people" explores the impact of social determinants on the health and healthcare inequalities of LGBTI people with Prof Nigel Sherriff, Dr Nick McGlynn, Alex Pollard and the Health4LGBTI consortium, funded by the European Commission. The political aim of this work is to address the causes of inequalities  experienced by minority groups. The output informs health service development and delivery for those who lead non-normative lives by acknowledging gender and sexual plurality. The research included developing a training programme for health professionals to address the specific health needs of LGBTI people.

Mental Health Practitioner Role Evaluation

A critique of discourses shaping mental health practice with the introduction of innovative roles such as the mental health practitioner role in Hampshire, UK with Dr Joanne Brown (PI) and Dr Lucy Simons. This initiative was designed to address workforce shortages in contemporary mental health practice.

Analysis of the Discursive Donstruction of Gender

Evolving from mental health practice, a critical discourse analysis aimed to understand the discursive construction of gender, in post-apartheid South Africa. This work questioned normative formations of gender and made visible how cultural and social change occurs, where gender identity, gender expression moved beyond binary formations towards gender plurality.

• Social enterprise organisations that have been created, managed or developed by academics alongside community partners
• university and academic partnership approaches
• knowledge production debates: knowledge co-creation, knowledge exchange and knowledge transfer
• the generation of social, research and economic "value"
• the role of universities in society
• researcher reflexivity

I am a PhD student at the University of Brighton’s Centre of Resilience for Social Justice and a Boingboing CiC volunteer and am funded by the South Coast Doctoral Training Partnership. My MSc explored barriers and motivations to participating in environmental community projects, the role of social capital and community resilience, and connections between social and environmental resilience. Currently my focus is on resilience within the climate-crisis context. Passionate about co-production, environmental justice and social justice, I am now working on a climate crisis study co-produced with HeadStart Blackpool Young People, with the aim to add to existing resilience resources from an environmental angle. I am also interested in posthumanism and the transformative paradigm.

Mirika Flegg is passionate about supporting the involvement of those with lived-experience of adversities in research and adopts user-led, collaborative and decolonizing methodologies to this aim.  She works closely with the Centre of Resilience for Social Justice; taking an interdisciplinary, asset-based and systems approach to addressing health inequalities.  She is on the management team for the Centre of Resilience for Social Justice and for the School of Health Sciences Research & Enterprise Committee.  For her efforts, Mirika was awarded University of Brighton Excellence in Community Engagement Award in 2016.

Scholarly Biography

Mirika’s recent research projects and publications focus on peer support in mental health and long-term conditions, educational and structural facilities for newly qualified practitioners, disability provisions in Higher Education, and building resilience within youth populations.  The latter of which is the focus of her current PhD.  Here, she is conducting a longitudinal qualitative study to explore the process, impacts and value of the Friend for Life Project (FFL) in Blackpool, UK.  

Mirika holds a Bachelors in Psychology from Concordia University (Canada) and two post-graduate certificates from the University of Brighton (UK) in Community, Engagement and Enterprise and Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.  Her professional development additionally includes short courses in Child and Youth Studies, Resilience, Human Resource Management, Journalism, IT, Song Writing and Film Making.  For her creative pursuits, she was awarded Quebec Canada Songwriter of the Year in 2001 and part of a team nominated for best-picture in the 2013 One Shot Movie Competition in 2012.  She utilises her artistic expertise to facilitate creative research practices. 

Approach to Teaching

Mirika holds a HEA Fellowship (FHEA) and draws from her research and practice-based experience in the support of her students.  Her teaching primarily centres around involving service-users in research and practice at the undergraduate and post-graduate levels and across health disciplines.  Her specialist knowledge in the area of Peer Support in mental health has led her to external examiner work for the CAPITAL PROJECT TRUST: Peer Support Worker Programme, Middlesex University London. 

Knowledge Exchange

Mirika has led on interdisciplinary speaker seminar series to bring researchers, practitioners and community members together in knowledge exchange.  This includes organising Resilience Forums in Blackpool, UK – a collaboration between the University of Brighton, HeadStart and Boingboing- and organising online training activities for newly qualified practitioners with the University of Brighton and Health Education Kent, Surrey and Sussex.  Having worked in community development in Canada, New Zealand and the UK, Mirika has a special interest in cross-cultural practices.  She was awarded a Hero’s medal for her work with young people in New Zealand in 2011 when she was nominated for New Zealander of the year.  Mirika is a founding member of the Sussex Peer Support Network; bringing those with lived-experience of adversity together with researchers and practitioners. 

Rosie is passionate about collaboratively working towards social justice for disadvantaged populations, using a strengths-based, interdisicplinary approach. In her PhD, reducing disciplinary school exclusion for all pupils, but especially for pupils who are the most vulnerable, is Rosie's current goal. Being part of the Centre of Resilience for Social Justice has encouraged Rosie to use systems-based, transformative methodologies in her work, in order to tackle complex health and social inequalities such as discplinary school exclusion. Through her PhD, Rosie is also exploring her interest in improving disadvantaged young people's mental health.

Marisol is a part-time doctoral researcher at the University of Brighton. Her Ph.D. research project will use a co-productive approach to explore school engagement from the perspective of parents/carers who face socio-economic challenges. Mixed methods of collaborative inquiry and focus group discussions will be used to enhance research credibility.

Toni King is undertaking a part time PhD researching how power is experienced by people who self harm and staff in community mental health teams within their interactions. Participatory image production, interviews and focus groups will be used to explore the experiences of both those providing and those accessing services. Critical discourse analysis will be undertaken alongside the Lived Experience Research Advisors employed to ensure a coproduced approach to this research.  

Toni's MSc on Exploring Coproduction in UK Recovery Colleges and published work relating to  Recovery Colleges and the Recovery Approach precede this work.