My work spans the intersection of mental health, spirituality and recovery, encompassing over two decades of research, clinical practice, teaching and consultancy.

I am the Course Lead for an innovative new MA at Buckinghamshire New University on Spirituality, Ecology and Mental Health and was involved as an Associate Lecturer during the early stages of this course’s development. Prior to this, I completed my ESRC Doctoral research at the University of Nottingham exploring the role of spirituality in mental health and recovery from lived experience perspectives. This included developing a novel user-friendly evidence-based (MISTIC) toolkit resource to support clinician and practitioner understanding of spiritual experiences and needs within mental health contexts, which has gained international interest.

I have worked across an extensive range of mental health settings since 2001 including as an Assistant Clinical Psychologist, Primary Care Mental Health Worker and within mental health spiritual care as Spirituality Lead for Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust. More recently, I have worked as an Associate Consultant for the Research and Evaluation Team at Imroc, a mental health charity providing training and consultancy that promote recovery focused practices and lived-experience expertise. 

I have completed an MSc in Mental Health and Social Care, a PG Certificate in Psychological Therapies, and a BA (Hons) in Psychology. I have also undertaken Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy training for NHS mental health contexts, attended the Religion and Health Research Summer School at the Centre for Spirituality, Theology and Health at Duke University, USA, and am an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

I am an Executive Committee member of the International Network for the Study of Spirituality (INSS) which aims to bring the study of spirituality to life through research scholarship education and practice, am part of the INSS conference committee and co-chair the INSS Spirituality Mental Health and Wellbeing Special Interest Group.