WHo is DOING THIS?
Lived experience is integral to every part of research and our team reflects this by including people who fund, guide, conduct, and publish research.
The Commission is co-led by Laura E. Fischer from Traumascapes and Angela Sweeney from the Service User Research Enterprise at King’s College London, with support from the ESRC Centre for Society and Mental Health (King’s College London), The Lancet Psychiatry, and Wellcome. The Commission is guided by a Lived Experience Advisory Board (LEAB) and supported by two project coordinators (Lou Robbin and Dylan Reddish, Traumascapes), a survivor artist-researcher (Sullivan Holderbach, Traumascapes) and an administrator (Paolo Chianta, King’s College London).
LEAB
The Commission is overseen by a Lived Experience Advisory Board (LEAB) of 12 people who are helping to shape the development and structure of the Commission. Meet the LEAB here!
PROJECT partners
Traumascapes is a survivor-led organisation dedicated to changing the ecosystem of trauma
and creating new horizons for survivors through art and science. We exist to comprehensively respond to
trauma and mental distress, address their determinants, support survivors, and protect people’s rights to safety, freedom, and joy. We combine lived experience, art, and science into six workstreams: research, consultancy, education, advocacy, community, and healing. Key focuses of our work include survivor-led research, lived experience involvement, trauma-sensitive practice, creative methods, arts-based interventions, and public engagement.
Service User Research Enterprise (SURE) at King’s College London is a unique academic research group comprised predominantly of Patient and Public Involvement Coordinators and researchers with direct experience of neurodiversity, trauma violence and abuse, mental distress, and/or (ref)using mental health services. We conduct research from the perspectives of first-person experiences, developing novel and robust methods and ethical approaches to do so. We teach and support new generations of survivor researchers who are themselves shaping what survivor research is. We also work with a range of groups and organisations to develop survivor-led research activities in the community, academia and the NHS.
The Lancet Psychiatry is a scientific journal and an internationally trusted source for original research within psychiatry. We publish original research that advocates change in, or illuminates, psychiatric practice. Topics include psychopharmacology, psychotherapy, and psychosocial approaches to all psychiatric disorders, across the life course. We cover innovative treatments and the biological research underpinning such developments, novel methods of service delivery, and new ways of thinking about mental illness promoted by social psychiatry. We also advocate strongly for the rights of people with mental illnesses and welcome the voices of service users.
ESRC Centre for Society and Mental Health brings together a unique mix of disciplines and expertise to conduct innovative research on the impact of rapid social changes on mental health. Research within the Centre aims to improve understanding of the complex interrelationships between society and mental health; create platforms that enable new collaborations between disciplines and with community partners; and work closely with service users/survivors, communities, practitioners, and policy makers to design and assess novel evidence-based strategies for prevention and intervention.
FUNDER
Wellcome is a global charitable foundation established in 1936. Through our work we support
science to solve the urgent health issues facing everyone. Mental Health at Wellcome aims to lead a step change in early intervention for anxiety, depression and psychosis. To do this involves considering how the brain, body and environment interact in mental health problems; understanding how interventions work and enabling connections and shared metrics across the full breadth of the Mental Health science community, including drawing on the expertise of those with lived experience of mental health problems. We do this by bringing together expertise across science, innovation and society.
