Dr Bethan Edwards is a researcher with lived experience of using Mental Health Services who also identifies as neurodivergent. She joined SURE at King’s College London in September 2023 to embark on her post-doctoral capacity-building fellowship funded by the NIHR School for Social Care Research (SSCR). The aims of this fellowship include a scoping review of organisational abuse and neglect in the context of community-based mental health services and the development of a grant application.

Bethan completed her PhD in Healthcare Sciences at Cardiff University in October 2022 and worked as part of the Health and Care Research Wales NHS research workforce from 2014-2022. During this time she also worked on a freelance basis as a lived experience researcher and is/has been co-applicant on a number of studies funded by the NIHR on the topic of emergency and urgent mental healthcare. Following her PhD she worked as a post-doctoral research associate at the University of Manchester. She is also a member of KCL’s Centre for Society and Mental Health’s Lived Experience Advisory Board (LEAB).

Having qualified as an occupational therapist in 2011, Bethan has previously conducted research from the perspective of a practitioner, namely in the field of dementia care. Her clinical practice experience has been in forensic mental health services.