I have been a carer of a person with Borderline Personality Disorder since 1990. We have 4 children, 3 girls and 1 boy, and I live in Poole in Dorset.
I had a heart attack in 2018 and have had 3 stents fitted so I also have Service User experience as well as my Carers experience.
I set up and ran a Mental Health Carers Charity from 2000 – 2013 with Big Lottery funding in the South and East Dorset area. Since 2006 I have worked at Bournemouth University as a Co-ordinator of the BU PIER Partnership in the Faculty of Health and Social Sciences. My role is to co-ordinate Carer and Service User involvement in the following programmes: Social Work, Occupational Therapy, Physiotherapy, Paramedic Science and Operating Department Practice.
I am a Higher Education Academy Associate Fellow as well as being a work place champion for Carer’s UK and a member of my GP practice Patient Participation Group.
Jennifer co-leads ASCRU2’s public involvement and steers involvement across the unit. Jennifer’s background is in public involvement, ethics, mental health law and the healthcare inspectorate. She chairs a Research Ethics Committee and is ethics advisor and trainer to a number of organisations. She sits on a number of funding and advisory panels, and chairs an NHS ICB wellbeing board. She sits on the editorial board of Health Expectations and has worked for the medico-legal and regulatory inspectorate and assessment for the CQC, RCGP and currently for the Royal College of Surgeons. Jennifer’s interest in social care comes from living with a complex long term condition and caring for parents with complex health and social care needs.
I have expertise in advising on issues related to involvement in different settings, including research and service provision; and bring a perspective of being a long-term user of health and social care services. My interest originates from activism in mental health in the 1980’s. I am particularly interested in user led and emancipatory research and co-production.
I am a member of the SCIE Co-production Steering Group and I carry out involvement related work with a variety of other organisations including the NIHR, HRA, Universities and voluntary sector organisations, including Disabled People’s User Led Organisations (DPULOs).
I have a particular interest in involving communities who are marginalised and/or not usually involved and have undertaken involvement work related to involvement in areas including palliative care and sexual abuse.
I have been involved in collaborations at all stages of the research process, from pre-protocol planning and bid-writing to dissemination.
I care for my wife who has long standing physical disability and two adult children with mental health issues.
I trained as a psychiatric nurse (RMN) and worked in this sector for many years before changing career to become a Social Worker (CQSW).
I worked for a number of local authorities in London, specialising in adult social care. During this period of over twenty years, I was involved in inspection of care homes and latterly as an expert by experience with the Care Quality Commission.
I was a member of the Social Care Workforce Research Unit Service Users and Carers Advisory Group, at Kings College London for many years, participating and assisting researchers with the work of the unit. I was a public advisor on a number of research studies at the Research Department of Primary Care and Population Health University College London and I am currently involved in two research studies with the Division of Psychiatry, University College London.
My voluntary work includes being a trustee with Carers UK and the charity MIND IN Ealing and Hounslow, I was chairperson for this charity for over two years.
I have been actively involved in the mental health user/survivor movement since 1989. I am co-ordinator of Sheffield User Survivor Trainers (SUST) a network of people with lived experience that develops and delivers mental health training. I am a Mind Influence and Participation Coach and a member of the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) Co-production, Equalities and Human Rights Steering Group. I have worked for a range of voluntary and community sector health and social care organisations and I currently work for a project that supports older people to access community services in Sheffield.
