Professor Jane Ireland
Jane teaches across a range of forensic psychology subjects. She is a practicing Forensic Psychologist who works as a clinician at Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust, where she runs violence therapy programmes. She is also an accredited EMDR (trauma) therapist and provides trauma therapy across services. She heads up a forensic research unit in Ashworth High Secure Hospital calls ARC. Several of her PhD and postgraduate students are based there, completing research.
Jane has published widely in the areas of aggression, psychopathy, personality disorder, self-injury and psychological trauma. She has written several handbooks. One of the most popular has been the Assessment, Treatment and Management of Violent and Sexual Offenders, 2nd Edition (2019), published by Routledge. Jane is a lead for research within the School and leads with teaching in forensic risk assessment, including psychopathy and personality disorder.
Jane originally worked in HM Prison Service, as a forensic psychologist, before moving into High Secure Psychiatric care. She has continued to work there whilst also developing and maintaining the academic portion of her career. She commenced in the School as a senior lecturer, before proceeding to become at Reader and then a Professor by age 30. She has developed a keen interest in editorial duties, starting two new Journals and remaining as Editor-in-Chief for them both (Journal of Aggression Conflict and Peace Research; Journal of Criminological Research Policy and Practice), whilst also remaining as an Associate Editor for Aggressive Behavior and for Journal of Forensic Psychiatry and Psychology. Jane set up the BPS accredited MSc Forensic Psychology in 2000, and remained Course Director for several years. This has remained one of the most popular programmes of study. Jane now focuses on the risk assessment and personality injury aspect of the programme, leading with a module on Forensic Risk Assessment and contributing to a module on Court application. In 2010 Jane set up the Ashworth Research Centre (ARC), funded by Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust. The ARC is now an international centre for research and training, with an established collaboration with Maastricht University in place since 2015. The centre comprises of Research Fellows, Senior Research Leads, Interns, Trainees and PhD students. Jane holds a number of visiting/honorary titles in addition to her Chair at UCLan. These include: Docent, Åbo Akademi University, Finland; Visiting Professor, Cardiff Metropolitan University; Visiting Professor, Charles Sturt University, Australia.
- BSc (Hons) Applied Psychology. UCLan, 1995
- M.Sc. Psychology and Criminology. Manchester Metropolitan, 1997
- PhD Psychology, UCLan. 2000
- Postgraduate Certificate in Expert Witness Accreditation. Cardiff University, 2005
- Post Graduate Certificate in Professional Practice in Law: Mental Health (Approved Clinician Training). Northumbria University, 2011
- Graduate Diploma in Law. Lancashire Law School. 2013
- EMDR (Trauma Therapy) accredited by European/UK EMDR. 2017
- Aggression, Psychopathy, Personality Disorder, Self-Injurious behaviour and Suicide, Trauma
- British Psychological Society (BPS – Chartered Member)
- Division of Forensic Psychology (DFP – Full member)
- Fellow of the International Society for Research into Aggression (ISRA)
- Registered Practitioner with the Health and Social Care Professions Council
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- Forensic Research Group
- Jane is involved in several research projects covering her areas of interest.
- Since 2011, Professor Ireland has acquired around £2million in funding, the majority in the past five years. This includes yearly funding to run the ARC and lead granted CQUIN projects.
- In 2019 - 2020, the following funds were acquired:
- 1.) NHS CQUIN: £42,566.51
- 2.) Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust: Trauma and Security Research: £39,292
- 3.) QR-SPF Strategic Priorities Funding, Research England: £16K
- 4.) QR Global Challenges Research Fund, Research England: £14K.
- Examples of recent conferences include:
- Ireland, J.L. (2018). Expert psychological evidence: The challenges of researching sensitive topics. Annual Conference of the European Association of Psychology and Law. Turku, Finland, June.
- Ireland, J. L., Mann, S., Ozanne, R., Ireland, C. A. (2019). Developmental trauma and psychopathy: Is there a link? Paper presented at Division of Forensic Psychology Annual Conference 2019, Liverpool, UK.
- Mooney, R., Ireland. J. L., Lewis, M. (2019). Understanding interpersonal relationships and psychopathy in forensic psychiatric and student samples. Paper presented at Division of Forensic Psychology Annual Conference 2019, Liverpool, UK.
- Ireland, J. L., Lewis, M., Ireland, C. A., Derefaka, G., Taylor, L., McBoyle, J., Smillie, L., Chu, S., Archer, J. (2019). Self-reported psychopathy and aggression motivation: A role for emotions? Paper presented at Division of Forensic Psychology Annual Conference 2019, Liverpool, UK.
- Lewis, M., Ireland, J. L., Ireland., C. A (2019). Confirming the factor structure of the Psychopathic Processing and Personality Assessment (PAPA) using a community sample: Attending to sex differences in psychopathy. Paper presented at Division of Forensic Psychology Annual Conference 2019, Liverpool, UK.
- Ireland, J. L., Sebalo, I., McNeill, K., Murphy, K., Brewer, G., Ireland, C. A., Chu, S., Lewis., M. (2019). Impacting on factors promoting intra-group aggression in secure psychiatric settings. Paper presented at Western Society of Criminology, February, Hawaii.
- Cramer, R.J., Ireland, J.L., Hartley, V., Long, M.M., Ireland, C.A., & Wilkinson, T. (2019). Working in secure forensic psychiatric settings: Results from a workplace health assessment. American Psychology-Law Society Annual Conference, Portland, Oregon, US, March 14–16.
Telephone:+44 1772 4471
Email: Email:Professor Jane Ireland
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