Bryher Bowness

Funded by London Interdisciplinary Social Science Doctoral Training Partnership (ESCR) https://liss-dtp.ac.uk/ , I started at King’s in 2020 as a masters’ student on the Mental Health Studies MSc. In 2021 I began my PhD in the Qualitative Research Group, supervised by Dr Vanessa Lawrence and Professor Claire Henderson.

After studying Politics, Psychology, and Sociology at undergraduate, I trained as a Mental Health Nurse and have been practicing for 6yrs in NHS Child and Adolescent Mental health Services. I have recently started in a part-time role a Senior Practitioner in South London & Maudsley Recovery College.

Since starting my PhD, I also undertook and Overseas Institutional Visit as an adjunct research fellow at La Trobe University, Melbourne, working with Professor Lisa Brophy and Professor Richard Gray

Research interests

Whilst at KCL, I have been working alongside the RECOLLECT team (https://www.researchintorecovery.com/research/recollect/) furthering the evidence basis for Recovery Colleges in England. Recovery Colleges take coproduced, adult education approaches to promote personal recovery in mental health and encourage recovery-oriented practice. In line with these aspirations, I have aimed to use coproduction and participatory research methods where possible. For my PhD, I have been focusing on family carer experiences of Recovery Colleges, and ways Recovery Colleges can improve inclusion of family carers.

My special areas of interest include coproduction and participatory research methods, qualitative and arts-based research methods, family carers of those with mental ill-health, and Recovery Colleges (nationally and internationally).

Expertise and public engagement

I worked alongside the NIHR Carer’s Steering Group to develop some resources for carers and researchers on involving carers in research -

https://www.nihr.ac.uk/blog/why-is-it-important-to-involve-unpaid-carers-in-research/33511

I have also engaged with family carers and Recovery Colleges to discuss how Recovery Colleges might involve family carers further, and codeveloped the following resources as a result of our webinar and research: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TrTEabysnNfsMxGkqq0yNzIGM3nHid6I/view?usp=drive_link

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ch6Aj0sdUMFQuaYWOvJKK97upBFNmRRc/view?usp=drive_link

Whilst at La Trobe University, we organized a collaborative seminar discussing Recovery Colleges and potential for their collaboration with universities, with 12 speakers from community organizations and services across Australia, and over 100 attendees online/in person.