Dr. Jan Wallcraft is a freelance researcher and presenter/facilitator, whose work is informed by experience as a mental health service user and activist. Jan has been a lead researcher in several national consultations of service users, including ‘Strategies for Living’, ‘On Our Own Terms’, and a Department of Health consultation on service user and carer research priorities. Her skills are based around participatory and empowering qualitative research, using methods such as narrative enquiry and focus groups, and she has trained and supported teams of service user researchers in a number of different projects. She has given many presentations on a range of mental health topics including service user involvement, recovery, alternatives to mainstream mental health services and crisis services. She has given presentations and training sessions on courses for social workers, nurses, housing support workers and service users.
As Manager of the Service User Research Network for England (SURGE), part of the Mental Health Research Network (MHRN), Jan was responsible for defining and producing good practice guidance on service user involvement in research. Previously Jan worked for three years as Fellow for Experts by Experience at NIMHE (National Institute for Mental Health in England) in which role she was responsible for improving NIMHE’s involvement of service users and carers. She was a leading part of the Making a Real Difference team who produced tools for improving the quality of service user/carer involvement - see http://www.nimhe.csip.org.uk/~mard
She has been a leading member of the mental health service user movement for many years. Jan was lead researcher on the user-led Strategies for Living project at the Mental Health Foundation, and completed her PhD in 2002, on people’s experiences of crisis, breakdown and psychiatric treatment.
Jan worked for the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health from 2001-2004, doing research on the mental health service user movement, and as a consultant on survey commissioned by the Dept. of Health’s Service Delivery Organisation, about service user and carer research priorities (see the results on http://www.sdo.lshtm.ac.uk/cpmentalinpatatients.html )
In January 2007 Jan was lead writer of a position paper on Recovery for the Royal College of Psychiatrists, CSIP and SCIE.
Her recent publications include:
Wallcraft J., Schrank B., Amering M. (2009) (eds), Handbook of Service User Involvement in Mental Health Research, Wiley-Blackwell
Wallcraft J. (2009) From activist to researcher and part-way back, in This Is Survivor Research, eds Angela Sweeney et al, PCCS Books.
Wallcraft J. (2008) Holistic approaches in mental health in Learning About Mental Health Practice, eds Theo Stickley and Thurstine Bassett, John Wiley & Sons Ltd. pp 555-570
Wallcraft J. (2007) User-led Research to Develop an Evidence Base for Alternative Approaches in Alternatives Beyond Psychiatry, eds Peter Stasny and Peter Lehmann, Peter Lehmann publications pp 342-350
Wallcraft J. (2005) Recovery from mental breakdown in Social Perspectives in Mental Health ed. Jerry Tew, Jessica Kingsley Publishers pp 200-215
Wallcraft J. (2005) The Place of Recovery in Mental Health at the Crossroads, eds Shulamit Ramon and Janet E. Williams, Ashgate Publishing pp 127-136
Wallcraft J. (2003) On Our Own Terms: a report on the mental health service user movement, Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health 2003
