Who we are
Knowledge Exchange Team
Our core team members are from The McPin Foundation and the University of Plymouth. Our expertise spans a range of areas but, importantly, the team combines clinical expertise, academic (research based) expertise and experiential expertise (lived experience from accessing community mental health services). We work in primary care, secondary mental health services and the voluntary sector.
We would also like to thank and acknowledge all the staff who worked as researchers in residence at McPin over the duration of the evaluation (Jennie Parker, Amy Ramsay, Zara Hanif-Schneider and Alison Faulkner) and the many staff in site teams who worked with us as part of local teams.
Alex Stirzaker
Alex has worked in the NHS as a clinical psychologist for over 30 years. Her main interest is in helping people with complex needs who have often experienced complex trauma and PTSD. She has been trained in a number of psychological therapies including Eye Movement desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR), Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) and Mentalisation. Alex has experience of implementing large-scale projects and was responsible in the southwest for IAPT developments as part of the quality assurance undertaken by the strategic health authority in the south west 2008-2013. She was the NHSE National Advisor 2010-2014 personality disorder working on 3 pilot projects to create a proof of concept to take the work forward into the community transformation framework. Since 2018 she has been the Clinical Lead community transformation/ psychological therapies for NHSE southwest responsible for the CMHF, as well as co-leading the three-pilot site evaluation.
Amy Saunders
Amy is a registered children’s nurse and specialist community public health nurse. Amy’s interest in mental health research and policy began whilst undertaking her psychology degree where she went onto work in CAMHS and adult mental health services. Amy is currently employed as a research fellow to evaluate CMHF designed to improve mental health services. Her research interests include realist methodology, mental health, and early intervention in children and young people’s mental health.
Caroline Quinn
Caroline is a Senior Research Administrator in the Community and Primary Care Research Group at the University of Plymouth, which she joined in October 2020. She enjoys working across multiple research projects looking to improve health care and promote positive change for individuals. Caroline has previously provided support on the PARTNERS project and the Community Mental Health Framework Pilot Evaluation. Prior to joining the research group Caroline worked in the NHS for a number of years, including providing administrative support in adult mental health services and CAMHS.
Charley Hobson-Merrett
Charley is a research fellow currently employed as part of the National Institute for Health and Care Research South West Peninsula Applied Research Collaborative (PenARC) Mental Health Research Initiative. This role involves enabling mental health research across the South West of England. Charley has experience working with mental health trusts, GP practices and voluntary sector providers to evaluate interventions designed to improve mental health services. Her methodological expertise includes Realist evaluation, IPA, systematic reviews, and researcher in residence models.
John Gibson
John joined McPin in 2014 as a Lived Experience Advisory Panel member for PARTNERS2 (a study developing a model of collaborative care for people with ongoing mental health needs) before becoming a service user researcher, and then senior service user researcher. He has worked on randomized controlled trials, qualitative studies, systematic reviews and ethnography. John mentors other staff at McPin working from a lived experience perspective. He also works at North Staffs Mind and is the LEAP member for the re-approval of Approved Mental Health Professionals in Staffordshire. With a diagnosis of bipolar, John brings over 20 years’ experience to a role that emphasises the importance of lived experience in research.
Rebecca Hardwick
Becky is an applied health researcher, with methodological expertise in qualitative and realist research and evaluation. She has skills in systematic review, ethnographic methods (interviews and participant/non-participant observation), and realist methods. Her research interests include knowledge mobilisation (the focus of her PenCLAHRC PhD), voluntary sector healthcare organisations, realist methodology, language revitalisation and of course mental health. She supervises two PhD students, one at the University of Plymouth and one at Charles Darwin University.
Richard Byng
Richard is based in Plymouth University and is Professor of Primary Care Research and Deputy Director for PenARC. He is a General Practitioner and a GP with a Special Interest in Mental Health. Richard has worked in research and general practice since 1995. His specific areas of expertise and interest include shared care for long-term mental illness, treatment of depression and offender health care. Richard also has experience of service development, management, policy development and teaching. Richard has been involved in projects related to access, commissioning, inter-professional working and implementation of evidence-based practice; becoming experienced with a range of quantitative and qualitative methodologies relevant to health services research.
Vanessa Pinfold
Vanessa has worked in mental health research for over 25 years, and has published studies on stigma and discrimination, families and carers, experiences of the mental health system, wellbeing networks and co-production in mental health research. She is now prioritising developing peer research methods through collaborative or co-production approaches. Vanessa currently co-chairs the Alliance of Mental Health Research Funders and is co-founder and research director at McPin, responsible for overseeing the work of the charity. She previously worked at Rethink Mental Illness and the KCL IOPPN and has a PhD from University of Nottingham.