Mental Health and Criminal Justice
The Mental Health and Criminal Justice strand of the Centre for Criminal Justice Research and Partnerships offers cross-disciplinary excellence in relation to research and knowledge around mental health and criminal justice.
The mental health theme examines key issues related to mental health and the criminal justice system. We are particularly interested in matters of diversity, the interface between services, prevention and risk, and interventions to ensure the streamlining and inclusivity of services for vulnerable people.
Public health and the needs of persons with mental illness within the criminal justice system is also a key priority for us. Partnership working is central to our group and we are keen to foster links with agencies, organisations and users of services and their families for whom criminal justice is important.
Our work is cross-disciplinary and the strand consists of academics from Policing, Nursing, Community Health, Art Design and Fashion, Law, Management, Psychology, Criminology, and Social Work.
Collaborators
We have established collaborations with key people outside of UCLan to enhance the module content and delivery. This included clinical partners who have both expertise of personality disorder and current working experience of the offender personality disorder pathway, ensuring current clinical and occupational expertise informed this project. We also recruited contributors with training and assessment expertise who have lived experience of personality disorder. This has been crucial to our co-delivery ethos of ensuring that people provide their lived expertise to this programme, including the relational elements of the programme that are embedded throughout.
Co-production
We worked with contributors to co-produce the content and teaching. We found that co-production has benefited the programme in many ways, including:
- It applies a whole-system approach to the translation of knowledge into practice
- It combines diverse knowledge bases and experiential perspectives
- It involves working together critically from differing perspectives.
- Everyone is respected for what they bring to the role
- We ensure equal payment structures and embedded funding
Meet the team
Professor Mick Mckeown is the Lead for Mental Health and Criminal Justice strand. Mick is Professor in Democratic Mental Health. He has consistently supported public engagement initiatives and helped found the Comensus service user and carer involvement initiative at the university. This has involved a significant amount of inter-disciplinary scholarship and alliance building, community engagement, and support for user groups.
Dr Kathryn Gardner is the Deputy Lead for the strand. Kathryn is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology and Programme Director for the MSc Applied Clinical Psychology and joint Programme Director for the Postgraduate Diploma Associate Psychological Practitioner (PGDip Cert) course.
Kathryn’s research interests are in mental health with Kathryn being widely published in the fields of personality disorder and self-harm.
Kathryn has methodological proficiency in both quantitative methods (e.g., logistic regression, and structural equation modelling) and qualitative methods (e.g., thematic analysis and interpretative phenomenological analysis).
Kathryn is Co-founder of Suicide and Self-Harm Research North West, or SSHaRE NoW, a collaboration between the University of Central Lancashire, Liverpool John Moores University, the University of Manchester, the Manchester Self-Harm Project, the Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Trust and the NIHR Applied Research Collaborations (ARCs).
SSHaRe NoW, was launched in June 2017 with the aim of bringing together a wide range of stakeholders with a shared interested in suicide and self-harm research, from across the north west of England. SSHaRE NoW hopes to encourage and support links and collaboration between researchers, clinicians, health services, third sector organisations, service users, and the public, by raising awareness of high quality suicide and self-harm research and initiatives in the local area.
SSHaRE NoW also aims to create a positive collaborative space where we can share knowledge, expertise, and experience of all kinds, to help identify and develop key areas of research that may help improve services and reduce suicide and self-harm in the future.
- Mental health, offending and care pathways
- Secure mental health services and other custodial settings
- Co-production and relational care
- Minimising restrictive and coercive practices
- Family carers - support and involvement
- Intersectional anomalies in care delivery and outcomes
- Mental health and policing
The Mental Health and Criminal Justice Group takes a ‘real world’ approach to research. We have a large number of researchers doing ‘real’ world projects, closely connected to those working in the criminal justice and health sectors and the community.
We recognise the need for a responsive, timely, tailored approach to find solutions that are evidence based.
The Public Psychiatric Emergency Assessment Tool (PPEAT) transforming police responses to people displaying mental distress or disorder.
The Public Psychiatric Emergency Assessment Tool (PPEAT), developed by Wright and McGlen, is the only tool of its kind in the world that enables frontline police officers to rapidly and accurately diagnose people with mental disorders. This has a substantial impact on police officers’ interactions with members of the public experiencing mental disorders in crisis situations and the subsequent pathways these individuals follow. More accurate diagnosis at point of contact has led to greater numbers of people being referred to health and social services and enabled appropriate intervention without criminalisation. This protects these vulnerable people, the public, and saves money.
The PPEAT has been adopted by the College of Policing as the national professional guideline for the assessment of mental vulnerability and illness under the label of the Vulnerability Assessment Framework (VAF). The VAF is available to all 123,000 police officers in England and Wales as well as other safeguarding agencies in the UK.
Police officers are often required to provide an immediate, emergency or unplanned response to situations involving a mentally disordered person in crisis. Consequently, they are required to make rapid judgements and decisions regarding public safety and what appears to be in the individual’s or society’s best interest. Our primary motivation for researching this work was to support police officers by developing an easy-to-use tool to assist in their assessment and response to people with a potential mental disorder. It was our hope that this instrument would improve police officers’ responses, and ultimately, the care outcomes for these vulnerable people. The adoption of the PPEAT, under the label of the Vulnerability Assessment Framework (VAF), meant that police officers’ decisions were guided by a non-judgemental, person-centred process. As a result, 24,000 people with mental health problems were diverted from custody into mental health services in 2014-2015 where expert assessment, care and treatment could be provided.
In 2007, Karen Wright and Ivan McGlen were discussing their experiences of working within Emergency Departments. Karen Wright had been an Emergency Department Mental Health Liaison Nurse and Ivan McGlen was an Emergency Department Nurse. Both were aware of the problems police officers often experienced when they decided to bring a mentally disordered person to the emergency department. Daily, they encountered people experiencing some form of mental distress, necessitating intervention and care. Often, they were brought in by police officers in a police vehicle to the emergency department having detained them under Section 136 (S136) of the Mental Health Act (MHA) (1983a, amended 2007). Frequently, they considered the person to have a perceived mental disorder and to pose a risk to themselves or to others. Such a decision has a human cost to the individual involved, but there is also a financial cost to the police which in 2018, was estimated at approximately £2000 per person. When encountering such a person, police officers often expressed frustration. They felt that they were expected to make critical health care decisions, without basic mental health awareness training. As a result, in many instances, they were not able to recognise the issues at all and a person, later identified as having a contributory mental disorder, was arrested.
On this basis, Wright and McGlen decided to research with police officers from Lancashire Constabulary by exploring what influenced police decision-making when they applied section 136 of the Mental Health Act. Careful research rapidly established that the solution was something that could enable police officers to make decisions and assist them in relaying their observations to healthcare staff. The key part of this, however, was that this should be done in a structured way allowing them to communicate in terms familiar to healthcare staff who could then quickly provide appropriate treatment
With this approach Wright and McGlen developed the Public Psychiatric Emergency Assessment Tool (PPEAT) to support police officers in applying Section 136 of the Mental Health Act. The tool was a cognitive aid, which converged and aligned an observer’s less precise impressions thereby bringing into focus a ‘mental model’ that could identify specific groups of sufferers of mental disorder. The mental model greatly improved their ability to perceive and comprehend features of mental disorder, thus helping them to communicate the symptoms of a particular condition. In particular, a great asset was the tool’s ability to provide structure during note-taking. The PPEAT therefore allowed officers to provide structured information which, though it may have little meaning to them, could nevertheless be interpreted as significant by health care staff.
The research took its lead from the advanced trauma life support ‘ABCDE Framework’ to create a simple to follow and memorize process that officers could incorporate into their decision-making process:
- Appearance
- Behaviour
- Communication
- Danger
- Environment.
Within England, the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee estimated that between 20% and 40% of all police encounters are associated with a person experiencing some form of mental disorder or crisis. A 2019 BBC Radio 5 Live investigation found evidence that Police Forces are dealing with an increasing number of mental health incidents. Until the introduction of the PPEAT, and its successor, the PPEAT-R, the police had no evidenced based mechanism to help them identify people with mental health problems or crises, or to appropriately respond to them. This tool is currently the only one of its kind in use in the world. It is credit card sized and front and back are illustrated below:
After this initial work, Wright and McGlen redesigned and revised the Tool to support police officers, not only when making Section 136 decisions, but also within their broader response when encountering and identifying a mentally disordered person. A unique approach was undertaken with this study where the police officer’s own behaviours were viewed through a three-level ‘Situation Awareness’ framework. This study identified that a failure to effectively identify or seek contextually relevant cues or information (Level 1), establishes flawed perceptions of features suggestive of mental disorder. Then, when the police officer seeks to ‘make sense’ of this ‘flawed’ information (Level 2), the potential for an inaccurate view of the behavioural patterns indicative of mental disorder may occur. This creates a miscomprehension of the situation and is likely to translate into an inappropriate and inconsistent (Level 3) response. This could be in the form of arresting them, rather than seeking health care support.
This study established a newly constructed view of the specific methods, rules, actions and behaviours used by police officers. It re-established the domains (appearance; behaviour; communication; danger; environment) as newly constructed concepts, capturing in detail the broad areas of focus police officers consider when they encounter a potentially mentally disordered person. A significant and unique finding was that a police officer’s ability to perceive, comprehend and respond to such people was not only determined by the presenting situation. It was determined to a large extent by their prior experience and personal views about mental illness.
We publish high quality research in peer-reviewed international academic journals. Examples include:
- Mckeown, Michael, Byrne, Charlotte, Cade, Holly, Harris, Jo and Wright, Karen Margaret (2023) The Secure Quality Involvement (SeQuIn) Tool: a study of the development and implementation of a benchmarking approach to coproduction in secure services. Journal of Forensic Practice, 25 (2). pp. 98-113. ISSN 2050-8794
- Mulongo, Peggy, Khan, Roxanne, McAndrews, Sue and Mckeown, Michael (2023) Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) trauma and mental health support during the UK lockdown: Exploring women’s experiences. Journal of Aggression, Conflict & Peace Research. Special Edition: Domestic abuse and family violence in the UK: the impact of COVID 19 . ISSN 1759-6599
- Rayner, Gillian and Wright, Karen Margaret (2023) Compassionate care for people who self-harm: principles, tools and techniques. Mental Health Practice, 26 (2). ISSN 1465-8720
- Connell, C., Jones, E., Haslam, M., Firestone, J., Pope, G. and Thompson, C. (2022), Mental health nursing identity: A critical analysis of the UK’s Nursing and Midwifery Council’s pre-registration syllabus change and subsequent move towards genericism. Mental Health Review Journal, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/MHRJ-02-2022-0012
- Lamph, G. Elliott, A., Gardner, K., Wright, K., Jones, E., Haslam, M., Graham-Kevan, N., Jassat, R. Jones, Fiona, J. McKeown, M. (2022) An Evaluation of a Pilot Multi-Professional Offender Personality Disorder (OPD) Higher Education Programme. Journal of Forensic Practice 24(2), pp. 1-18 Emerald Publishing Limited. ISSN 2050-8794
- Saini, P. Clements, C. Gardner, K. Chopra, J. Latham, C. Kumar, R. & Taylor, P. (2022) Identifying suicide and self-harm research priorities in North West England: a Delphi study. Crisis: The Journal of Crisis Intervention and Suicide Prevention, 43 (1). Hogrefe Publishing, pp. 35-45. ISSN 0227-5910
- Gardner, K. J., Wright, K. M., Elliot, A., Lamph, G., Graham, S., Paker, L., & Fonagy, P. (2021) Learning the subtle dance: the experience of therapists who deliver mentalisation-based therapy for borderline personality disorder. Journal of Clinical Psychology. ISSN 0021-9762https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.23208
- Lamph G, Dorothy, J., Jeynes, T., Coak, A., Elliott, A., Jassat, R, McKeown, M & Thornton T (2021) A qualitative exploration of the label of personality disorder from the perspectives of people with lived experience and occupational experience. Mental Health Review Journal. DOI10.1108/MHRJ-05-2020-0035
- Lamph, G., Baker, J., Dickinson, T & Lovell, K (2020) Personality disorder co-morbidity in primary care ‘Improving Access to Psychological Therapy’ (IAPT) Services: A qualitative study exploring patient’ perspectives. BABCP Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy Journal (September 8: 1-15) https://doi.org/10.1017/S1352465820000594
- Lamph, G., Elliott, A., Gardner, K., McKeown, M & Jassat R (2020) Offender Personality Disorder Higher Education Training Programme 'Northern Region' Annual Report 2019/20 - UCLan Repository
- Tomlin, J., Dalgleish-Warburton & Lamph G (2020) Psychosocial support for healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Frontiers in Psychology. Psychology for Clinical Settings. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01960
- Farrier, A., Baybutt, M., and Dooris, M. T. (2019) Mental Health and Wellbeing Benefits from a Prisons Horticultural Programme. International Journal of Prisoner Health, 15 (1). pp. 91-104. ISSN 1744-9200
- Gardner, K.J,. Wright, K.M., Elliott, A., Graham, S., Fonagy, P. (2019) The weirdness of having a bunch of other minds like yours in the room: The lived experiences of mentalization‐based therapy for borderline personality disorder, Psychology and Psychotherapy Research and Practice. SSN 1476-0835, https://doi.org/10.1111/papt.12243
- McKeown, M., Thomson, G., Scholes, A., Duxbury, J., et al. (2019) Restraint minimisation in mental health care: legitimate or illegitimate force? An ethnographic study. Sociology of Health & Illness. October 2019.
- McKeown, M., Duxbury, J., Thomson, G., Scholes, A., et al. (2019) Staff experiences and understandings of the REsTRAIN Yourself initiative to minimise the use of physical restraint on mental health wards. International Journal of Mental Health Nursing. 28(4) March 2019.
- McKeown, M., Thomson, G., Scholes, A., Duxbury, J. et al. (2019) Restraint minimisation in mental health care: legitimate or illegitimate force? An ethnographic study. Sociology of Health & Illness. October 2019.
- Mckeown, M., and Wainwright, J.P. (2019) Echoes of Frantz Fanon in the place and space of an alternative black mental health centre. Critical and Radical Social Work. ISSN 2049-8608
- McKeown, M., Duxbury, J., Baker, J., Whittington, R., et al. Minimising the use of physical restraint in acute mental health services: The outcome of a restraint reduction programme (‘REsTRAIN YOURSELF’) International Journal of Nursing Studies 95. March 2019.
- Cusack, P., Cusack, F. P., McAndrew, S., McKeown, M., & Duxbury, J. (2018) An integrative review exploring the physical and psychological harm inherent in using restraint in mental health inpatient settings. International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, 27, 1162-1176.
- McKeown, M., McElroy, E., McIntyre, J. C., Bentall, R. P. et al. (2018) Mental health, deprivation, and the neighbourhood social environment: a network analysis. Clinical Psychological Science. November 2018.
- McKeown, M. (2018) Mental health workforce and survivor alliances: a personal story of possibilities, perils and pratfalls. In: Bull, P., Gadsby, J., & Williams, S. (eds) Critical mental health nursing: observations from the inside. Ross-On-Wye: PCCS Books. Pp.177-188.
- Cusack, P., Cusack, F., McAndrew, S., McKeown, M. & Duxbury, J. (2018) An integrative review exploring the physical and psychological harm inherent in using restraint in mental health in-patient settings. International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, DOI: 10.1111/inm.12432
- Gire, N., Farooq, S., Naeem, F., Duxbury, J., McKeown, M., Kundi, P.S., Chaudhry, I.B. and Husain, N., (2017) mHealth based interventions for the assessment and treatment of psychotic disorders: a systematic review. mHealth, 3, 33.
- Spandler, H. & McKeown, M. (2017) Exploring the case for truth and reconciliation in mental health. Mental Health Review Journal, 22, 2, 83-94.
- Baybutt, M., & Chemlal, K. (2016). Health-promoting prisons: Theory to practice. Global Health Promotion, 23(1), 66-74.
- Husain, N., Gire, N., Kelly, J., Duxbury, J., McKeown, M., Riley, M., Farooq, S. (2016). TechCare: Mobile assessment and therapy for psychosis–an intervention for clients in the early intervention service: A feasibility study protocol. SAGE Open Medicine, 4.
- McKeown, M., Jones, F., Foy, P., Wright, K., Paxton, T. & Blackmon, M. (2016) Looking back, looking forward: recovery journeys in a high secure hospital. International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, 25, 234-242.
- McKeown, M., Jones, F., Wright, K., Spandler, H., Wright, J., Fletcher, H., Turton, W. (2016). It's the talk: A study of involvement initiatives in secure mental health settings. Health Expectations, 19(3), 570-579
- Chu, S., McNeill K., Wright, K.M, Hague, A & Wilkins, T. (2015) The Impact of night confinement policy on patients in a high secure inpatient mental health service, Journal of Forensic Practice 17 (1) 13-20.
- McKeown, M. & White, J. (2015) The future of mental health nursing: are we barking up the wrong tree? Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, 22, 724-730.
- McKeown, M., Roy, A. & Spandler, H. (2015) ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’: supportive social relations in a football and mental health project. International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, 24, 360-369.
- Newbigging, K., Ridley, J., McKeown, M. et al (2014) “When you haven’t got much of a voice”: An evaluation of the quality of Independent Mental Health Advocate (IMHA) Services in England. Health & Social Care in the Community, 23, 313-324.
- McKeown, M., Jones, F., Wright, K. et al. (2014) It’s the talk: a study of involvement practices in secure mental health services. Health Expectations, 19, 570-579
- McKeown, M., Dix, J., Jones, F., Malihi-Shoja, L., Carter, B., & Harrison, N. (2014) Service user involvement in mental health practitioner education: movement politics and transformative change. Nurse Education Today (Special Issue), 34, 1175–1178.
8th June 2022
Suicide and Self Harm: What we know and what we need to know Conference
Over 235 people had registered to attend a Suicide and Self Harm in Communities conference that was held at UCLan’s Preston Campus on the 8th June. The event was hosted by the SSHare Now network a group of academics from UCLan, the University of Manchester and Liverpool John Moores along with people who are experts by experience. The event was held in partnership with Healthy Lancashire and South Cumbria.
Presentations were given by:
- Neil Smith, Healthier Lancashire and South Cumbria
- Professor Andrew Ireland, UCLan
- Dr Jennifer Chopra, LJMU
- Alice Hendy on the ‘R;pple suicide prevention tool’
- Dr Kathryn Gardner UCLan and Dr Caroline Clements’ The Manchester Self-Harm Project based at the University of Manchester,
- Dr Pooja Saini and Anna Hunt, LJMU;
- Dr Peter Taylor, University of Manchester
The day culminated in a panel discussion on what is known in treating and recovering from self-harm and suicide and where research needs to be directed.
9th June 2021
Community Approaches to the Criminal Justice System Community-based approaches to the Criminal Justice System
In June 2021 the CJP and Lancashire Violence Reduction Network ran an event aimed at opening up conversations around community-based approaches to criminal justice. The event was attended by over 160 people.
Speakers included:
- Det Chief Superintendent Sue Clarke, Head of Lancashire Violence Reduction Network,
- Professor Dame Carol Black,
- Professor David Best (University of Derby)
- Mike Barton, former Chief Constable of Durham Police.
The event also included the inspiring experiences of Scott Walker and Louise West. Both provided moving accounts of their own personal experiences within the criminal justice system and substance addiction, their life of recovery and successes, and how they now contribute to helping others within their local communities.
Discussions included issues such as working in partnership with individuals, providing community interventions and lesser sentences, working more effectively to enable individuals an opportunity to contribute positively within their local area. This in turn enables a change in attitudes of the professionals working with these people where personal experiences can influence how to work effectively with individuals who need interventions such as addiction recovery.
18 June 2020
Adverse Childhood Experiences and Trauma Informed Practice in the Community
We hosted a special webinar in June to develop a shared language around ‘adverse childhood experiences’ to enable the community as a whole to be able to discuss these and assist local organisations tackling the issue. This event was run in partnership with the Health Innovation Campus, Lancaster University, Manchester Metropolitan University, Cherryfold Primary School and Sue Irwin an independent consultant who works on ACEs and trauma informed approaches. 25 practitioners working in the SW Burnley area attended the event.
17 June 2020
Suicide and Self-Harm in the Community SSHARE NOW event
Over 150 people registered to attend a Suicide and Self Harm in Communities conference that was due to be held at UCLan’s Preston Campus on the 17th June. The event was due to be hosted by Suicide and Self-Harm Research North West (SSHaRe NoW). SSHaRe NoW is a collaboration between The University of Central Lancashire, Liverpool John Moores University, The University of Manchester, the Manchester Self-Harm Project, the Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Trust and the NIHR Applied Research Collaborations (ARCs). The event was originally to be held in partnership with Healthy Lancashire and South Cumbria. Given the importance of the topic at the current time the group decided to hold a two hour webinar online. This proved immensely popular with 200 people registering to attend and a waiting list of 67 people.
This event was the first online webinar the group had organised. Presentations were given by Neil Smith, Multi Agency Strategic Lead - Lancashire & South Cumbria Mental Health who presented on Real Time data collection for suicide prevention and support and Vicki Wagstaff Healthy Lancashire and South Cumbria who presented on . Whole system approach to self-harm support
The presentations were followed an Ask the Panel session hosted by members of the SSHaRe NoW group
10 March 2020
Pathways to Recovery, desistance and reintegration.
Professor David Best University of Derby and Graham Beck, Governor of HMP Wymott
14 February 2020
Adverse Childhood Experiences and Trauma Informed Practice in the Community UCLan Burnley
We were pleased to host our first CJP event at UCLan’s Burnley Campus in February. Over 120 people registered to attend the event. The event was hosted as part of ongoing work in the SW Burnley area around Adverse Childhood Experiences and Trauma Informed Practice.
Speakers included:
- Nicola Graham-Kevan,
- Rosie and Danny Wolstencroft from Empowering the Invisible
- Chief Superintendent Sue Clarke, Lancashire VRN
- Sue Irwin
- Steve Archer, Witton Park Academy
- Chris Keene and Esther Selway, Cherryfold Primary School Burnley
29 March 2019
Understanding Resilience in the Face of Adversity: Next steps for Lancashire
This was the second of our Understanding Resilience workshops. UCLan’s Professor Dawne Gurbutt opened the event and thought -provoking presentations were given by Detective Chief Superintendent Susannah Clarke from Lancashire Constabulary and Jade Amelia.
Over 60 practitioners, academics and students attended the event
21 November 2018
Mental Health and Criminal Justice: Defining and Containing the Big Ideas
24 May 2018
Vulnerabilities and Crime: Victims, Offenders and Frontline Practitioners Conference
This event aimed to highlight the reasons why vulnerability is emerging as a central concept within the criminal justice and health and social care environments. The event was opened by Dr. Rachel Cragg, Pro-Vice Chancellor for Academic Development at UCLan. Presentations were given by Mike Cunningham (College of Policing), Prof. Stuart Kirby (UCLan), Prof. Mick McKeown (UCLan), Neil Smith (Healthier Lancashire and South Cumbria STP), Men After Prison, Prof. Nicola Graham-Kevan (UCLan) and Julie Cross (Lancashire YOT). A panel discussion also took place with speakers and also included Karen Cassidy, Public Health Lead for Vulnerable and Complex Populations (Blackburn with Darwen Council).
9 May 2017
Inspector Michael Brown OBE: ‘Policing and mental Health: Just doing the wrong thing righter’
In March 2017 we were pleased to have Dr. Anthony O’Brien lecturer in mental health nursing at the University of Auckland, New Zealand and a nurse specialist in liaison psychiatry, come to visit the Partnership. As part of Dr. O’Brien’s visit, UCLan hosted ‘An Audience with Tony O’Brien’, in which Professor Tim Thornton lead a conversation with Dr. O'Brien on his research and academic experiences. Additionally, a full day conference was held at Westleigh Conference Centre and centred on ‘Rethinking the Criminal Justice System and Mental Health’.
This was a very popular event and included presentations from Dr. O’Brien, Professor Duxbury (UCLan), Inspector Michael Brown (College of Policing) and Sarah Swindley (CEO Lancashire Women’s Centre). The event was designed to promote ideas and relationships for better services for people with mental health problems and safety outcomes within the Criminal Justice System.
March 2017
Criminal justice organisations to work with UCLan to address challenges facing sector
In March 2017 we were pleased to have Dr. Anthony O’Brien lecturer in mental health nursing at the University of Auckland, New Zealand and a nurse specialist in liaison psychiatry, come to visit the Partnership. As part of Dr. O’Brien’s visit, UCLan hosted ‘An Audience with Tony O’Brien’, in which Professor Tim Thornton lead a conversation with Dr. O'Brien on his research and academic experiences. Additionally, a full day conference was held at Westleigh Conference Centre and centred on ‘Rethinking the Criminal Justice System and Mental Health’. This was a very popular event and included presentations from Dr. O’Brien, Professor Duxbury (UCLan), Inspector Michael Brown (College of Policing) and Sarah Swindley (CEO Lancashire Women’s Centre). The event was designed to promote ideas and relationships for better services for people with mental health problems and safety outcomes within the Criminal Justice System.
For further information, contact criminaljustice@uclan.ac.uk
There are four other research groups under the Criminal Justice Partnership theme.
News
ArticleThe Public Psychiatric Emergency Assessment Tool (PPEAT): Transforming police interactions with people with mental disorders
The Public Psychiatric Emergency Assessment Tool (PPEAT) is the only tool of its kind in the world enabling frontline police officers to rapidly and accurately identify people with mental disorders.
NewsCriminal justice organisations to work with UCLan to address challenges facing sector
The UK's criminal justice sector will benefit from UCLan's expertise through a new scheme designed to deliver tailored research projects to help the sector.