About
I am the Research Director on the Doctorate of Clinical Psychology training programme at the University of Liverpool. I lead the 'Mental Health in Context' research group at the Institute of Psychology, Health and Society, University of Liverpool (https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/institute-of-life-and-human-sciences/schools-and-departments/department-of-psychological-sciences/research/mental-health-in-context/) which investigates how mental health is affected by dynamic interactions between people, places & spaces.
I have a keen research interest in Global Mental Health. I was lead editor of ‘The Palgrave Handbook of Socio-cultural Perspectives on Global Mental Health’ (http://link.springer.com/book/10.1057%2F978-1-137-39510-8) which was released in February 2017. My Global Mental Health research interests include a focus on evaluating the efficacy of psychological interventions in low- and middle-income countries. This includes investigating processes involved in the linguistic/cultural adaptation of psychological interventions.
I have research collaborations with the World Health Organization and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees investigating the efficacy of psychosocial interventions for reducing distress experienced by refugees particularly in the context and/or aftermath of humanitarian crises. I am the Principal Investigator on the ESRC/AHRC funded ‘Community-based Sociotherapy Adapted for Refugees’ (COSTAR: https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/costar) project that is evaluating a psychosocial intervention for Congolese refugees living in Uganda and Rwanda. I am also a co-investigator on clinical trials investigating the efficacy of a guided self-help intervention based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), called Self-Help Plus (SH+), which aims to reduce distress experienced by refugees in Uganda and across the EU respectively. I am also a co-investigator on the NIHR funded PROSPER trial (https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/population-health-sciences/departments/health-services-research/research/prosper/), which is evaluating the feasibility of using Problem Management Plus (PM+) to treat common mental health problems experienced by refugees and asylum seekers in the Liverpool City Region.
I am an Association of Contextual Behavioural Science (https://contextualscience.org/acbs) peer-reviewed trainer of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and I am qualified (as per UK Good Practice Guidelines for Mindfulness-Based Teachers) to teach 8-week Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) courses. In 2018, I was appointed as a Fellow of the Association of Contextual Behavioural Science.
Prizes or Honours
- Health Humanities Best International Research (AHRC and Wellcome Trust, 2018)
- Honorary Consultant Clinical Psychologist (Mersey Care NHS Trust, 2018)
- Fellow of the Association of Contextual Behavioral Science (Association of Contextual Behavioral Science, 2018)