Education & Qualifications

Higher National Diploma Business Studies,

Post Graduate Diploma in Advanced Marketing.

Honorary Fellow, Brunel University - Centre for Citizen Participation.

Honorary Member of the NIHR (National Institute for Health Research) Faculty.

Previous Employment

Marketing Research with Audits of Great Britain and Quaker Oats in the 1970’s.

Self employed for last ten years after an enforced career break

Additional relevant experience & interests

Chair, since 2004, of the European Network of (ex) Users and Survivors, Ex member of the disabled women’s committee and current member of Heath Task Force of the European Disability Forum,

1998/99 - Member of the External Reference Group advising the Department of Health on the National Service Framework for Mental Health and member of the Independent Reference Group set up by the Health Minister Paul Boateng to advise on the closure programme for long-stay psychiatric hospitals.

2002 - 2004 Chair of the reference group for the West Midlands Development Centre of the National Institute for Mental Health in England.

• Visiting member of The Mental Health Act Commission (Care Quality Commission) a duty vested in me by the Department of Health to ensure the rights of patients, detained under the 1983 Mental Health Act, are observed.
• Work with Social Firm UK including membership of the Worker Participation group for the completed Marienthal trans-national project.
• Member of Involve (formerly Consumers in NHS Research) an advisory role which supports the Department of Health Research and Development programmes and which has expanded its remit to include public health and social care.
• A lay reviewer of mental health services for the Healthcare Commission for Audit and Inspection (formerly Commission for Health Improvement) and the Healthcare Inspectorate for Wales.
• Chair of the European Network of Users (ex) Users and Survivors of Psychiatry based in Berlin. www.enusp.org

Member of research advisory groups:

• Strategies for Living, Mental Health Foundation, published.
• Thinking About Risk Assessment, University of Bristol, published.
• Information Sharing - Rethink & Institute of Psychiatry
• SURGE, user led hub of the Mental Health Research Network
• Sheffield University - Personality Disorder research
• Mental Health Foundation - evaluation of pilot services for people with personality disorder

Member of:

• Mindlink - the user voice within Mind the national mental health charity. From 1996 until 2001 I was chair of this voluntary organisation which has over one thousand members in England and Wales.
• MDF The BiPolar Organisation
• Rethink
• Survivor Researcher Network, Mental Health Foundation
• Suresearch, University of Birmingham

Current & recent research

Two Research projects funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and undertaken with Professor Peter Beresford:

a] Empowerment and Mental Health Service Users.

b] Psychiatric system survivors, the social model of disability and a social model of madness and distress.

Involved in peer review and service advisory groups.

Recent relevant publications & outputs

• Co-editor (2009) ‘This is Survivor Research’ - PCCS Books
• ‘Handbook of Service User Involvement in Mental Health Research’ - Wiley-Blackwell - chapter (with Jan Wallcraft) ‘History, Context and Language’

• New Thinking about Mental Health and Employment - Radcliffe - a chapter ‘What keeps me working?’
• ‘Speaking Our Minds’ - Macmillan Press - chapter ‘Listening in the Asylum’  Open University course.
• ‘Planning Community Mental Health Services for Women’ -book chapter (with Andrea Phillips), user perspective; our experiences and recommendations.  Routledge
• ‘Building on Experience’ (With Roberta Graley) - A Mental Health Task Force publication being a service users as trainers pack.  Department of Health
• ‘Psychopharmaka absetzen’  - book chapter now available English as ‘Coming Off Psychiatric Drugs’ personal experiences of using psychiatric medication. Lehmann
• ‘Living with Drink - Women who live with problem, Chapter 7 ‘Emily; Both partners in the couple have problems’ is my story, chapter 15 contains my reactions to theoretical perspectives described in the book, ed. drinkers’Richard Velleman et al
• Guidance Paper ‘Payments to Service Users’ (with Angela McHarron), West Midlands Partnerships for Mental Health and the NHS Executive West Midlands Regional Office.
• Past member of editorial board, and regular contributor, to quarterly journal ‘Life in the Day’ covering work and daytime opportunities for people who use mental health services, Pavilion.
• Articles in ‘Womans Realm’ and ‘Heres Health’