Community Engagement for Mental Health Research Group (CE4ME)
Community Engagement for Mental Health Research Group (CE4ME)
Chair:
Dr Peter Pearce
Members:
Dr Evi Chryssafidou
Dr Biljana van Rijn
Dr Joel Vos
Dr Sofie Bager-Charleson
Dr Urs Khan
Deborah Bailey-Rodriguez
Dr Ariana Jordan
Description:
The Community Engagement for Mental Health Research Group seeks:-
- to examine how expertise from psychotherapy and counselling practice and research can have broader reach to impact community mental health
- to focus on individuals / groups who are less likely to access and make use of traditional therapy settings
- to include projects that develop and evaluate psychotherapeutic interventions in these communities along with applications of psychotherapeutic ideas by allied professionals, community services and volunteers
- to have social justice as a core theme
Psychotherapists and counsellors have traditionally focused on helping individuals with their mental health concerns within the settings of mental health services, such as community clinics, psychiatric wards and hospitals. However, in the last decades, and against the backdrop of humanitarian crisis, virus pandemic, and large treatment gap for psychological distress and mental disorders, equity and access have become increasingly important and mental health professional and services have strived to move into everyday community settings such as schools and community centres and related professionals and volunteers, such as teachers, community support staff, and youth workers are increasingly being expected to work with young people and adults whose mental health is affected by social exclusion or humanitarian crisis.
The output of research and development of this group is applicable in community settings, particularly to individuals in groups who are less likely to use traditional psychotherapy settings, such as refugees and immigrants, women suffering from domestic and cultural oppression, children and young people, elderly people, and, more generally individuals in adverse socio-economic circumstances, and Black and Asian Minority Ethnicity groups.
Current Projects (2025):
What are the Supervision needs for co-produced research with marginalised communities? A mixed methods study forming Research Supervision Guidelines.
Researchers:
Dr Sofie Bager-Charleson, Dr Urs Khan, Deborah Bailey-Rodriguez, Dr Ariana Jordan, Dr Peter Pearce
Aims:
This project aims to develop Good Practice Guidelines for Research Supervision in therapy-related Co-Produced Research with minoritised groups and service users (PLE).
Research Question:
What are the needs, barriers, and institutional strategies to support inclusive, safe, and effective co-produced research? Whilst research supervision often is regarded as crucial, the profession remains under-theorised and lacking guidelines. We argue that co-produced research can be particularly complex. This mixed methods project responds to this, aiming to develop good supervisory practice guidelines combining a qualitative survey and co-operative inquiry.
Method:
The project is a partnership between Middlesex University and Metanoia Institute in collaboration with supervisors and research students actively working with local communities, charities and public mental health service providers as part of their research. The project will undergo ethical approval through the Metanoia Research Ethics Committee.
A qualitative survey will be disseminated with a subsequent invite to co-operative inquiry across 6 doctoral programmes for counsellors, psychotherapists and counselling psychologists with experience from ongoing participatory, co-produced mental health research with minoritised groups and service users. The outcome will form draft guidelines disseminated across relevant training institutes across the UK for feedback before guideline refinement with co-operative inquiry co-researchers, before manuscript write-up and submission.
Recent Projects:
AMORAY: Assessment of Mental Health of Refugees and Asylum seekers by Youth Workers (2019-2021). https://amoray-project.eu/ Erasmus + Program, Key Action 2 Cooperation for Innovation and the Exchange of Good Practices.
Funding: €214,604.
Metanoia Institute is Project coordinator.
Project leader at Metanoia: Dr Evi Chryssafidou.
This project develops a training curriculum for youth workers who work with young migrants, refugees and asylum seekers in the UK, France, Spain and Greece. It aims to acknowledge the role youth workers play and upskill them in mental health assessment and prevention, in understanding trauma and vicarious traumatisation, and in developing strategies in collaborating with mental health practitioners and in self-care. The training will be evaluated in four countries.
HEROINES: Empowerment of women with mental illness living in rural areas through writing therapy (2019-2021). https://www.heroines-project.eu/ Erasmus + Program, Key Action 2, Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices.
Funding: €198,604
Metanoia Institute is one of Principal investigators
Project leader at Metanoia: Claire Williamson.
MENTAL HEALTH IN CRISIS. This project reviews how mental health is influenced by socio-economic crises and examines why mental health services are failing in offering efficient services. Particular attention is given to the role of mental health care in communities
Project leader: Dr Joel Vos.
YOUR CHOICE ; A London-wide £10 million, 3-year programme (beginning 2022-2025) to address violence-reduction approaches to effectively support children and young people affected by extra-familial violence and related harms.
Your Choice seeks to fill a practice gap by moving beyond understanding why a child may behave in a certain way to providing tools and techniques which practitioners can employ to help the child to keep themselves safe. Any child aged between 11-17 years old who is assessed as medium or high risk of harm / vulnerability as a result of extra-familial harm and has been considered by a multi-agency panel can participate in Your Choice.
Metanoia are partnering with Ealing LA for the borough arm of this project
Project leader at Metanoia: Dr Peter Pearce
Recent research output:
January 2025. Therapist Interpersonal Skills and Outcomes for Young People. Psychotherapy Research, 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1080/10503307.2025.2457398 Cooper, M., Saxon, D., Duncan, C., Scruggs, R., Barkham, M., Bower, P., Cromarty, K., Pearce, P., & Stafford, M. R
January 2025. Humanistic Therapy for Young People: Client-Perceived Helpful Aspects, Hindering Aspects, and Processes of Change. Journal of Child and Family Studies. Cooper, M., Smith, S., Sumner, A. L., Eilenberg, J., Childs-Fegredo, J., Kelly, S., Subramanian, P., Holmes, J., Barkham, M., Bower, P., Cromarty, K., Duncan, C., Hughes, S., Pearce, P., Rameswari, T., Ryan, G., Saxon, D., & Stafford, M. R. (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-024-02955-3
2nd May 2024 How Do We Know Whether Treatment Has Failed? Paradoxical Outcomes in Counseling with Young People? Paradoxical Outcomes in Young People Frontiers in Psychology, Psychology for Clinical Settings McLeod, J., Stänicke, E., Oddli, H. W., Smith, S., Pearce P., and Cooper M. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1390579/abstract
15 Mar 2024 Helpful and unhelpful factors in school-based counselling and pastoral care as usual: analysis of qualitative data from the experience of service questionnaire, Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties. Raynham, H., Cooper, M., Hayes, J., Rae J. & Pearce, P. , DOI: 10.1080/13632752.2023.2276022
March 2021 Humanistic counselling plus pastoral care as usual versus pastoral care as usual for the treatment of psychological distress in adolescents in UK state schools (ETHOS): a randomised controlled trial. Cooper, M., R Stafford, M., Saxon, D., Beecham, J., Bonin, E., Barkham, M., Bower, P., Cromarty, K., Duncan, C., Pearce, P., Rameswari, T. & Ryan, G. (2021)
The Lancet Child and Adolescent Mental Health Volume 5, Issue 3, P178-189, March 01, 2021 https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(20)30363-1/fulltext
Beecham, J. & Pearce, P. (2018) Cost-effectiveness of school-based humanistic counselling for psychological distress in young people: pilot randomised controlled trial. British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, 47:4, 460-471, DOI: 10.1080/03069885.2018.1552777https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03069885.2018.1552777
Cooper, M., R Stafford, M., Saxon, D., Beecham, J., Bonin, E., Barkham, M., Bower, P., Cromarty, K., Duncan, C., Pearce, P., Rameswari, T., Ryan, G. (2021) Humanistic counselling plus pastoral care as usual versus pastoral care as usual for the treatment of psychological distress in adolescents in UK state schools (ETHOS): a randomised controlled trial
The Lancet Child and Adolescent Mental Health Volume 5, Issue 3, P178-189, March 01, 2021 https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(20)30363-1/fulltext
Cooper, M., Fugard, A., J. B., Pybis, J., McArthur, K. & Pearce, P. (2015) Estimating effectiveness of school-based counselling: Using data from controlled trials to predict improvement over non-intervention change. Counselling & Psychotherapy Research, 15(4), pp 262-273 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/capr.12017/full
Hamilton, F. (2022) LAPIDUS International Research and Innovation Community (LIRIC) Journal (In Press)
Pearce, P., Sewell, R. & Cromarty, K. (2018) School and education settings. In: Pattison, S., Robson, M. and Beynon, A. (eds.) Handbook of counselling children and young people. (Second Edition) London: BACP and Sage Publications
Pearce, P., Sewell, R. & Proud, G. (2018) Groupwork. In: Pattison, S., Robson, M. and Beynon, A. (eds.) Handbook of counselling children and young people (Second Edition) London: BACP and Sage Publications
Pearce, P., Sewell, R., Cooper, M., Osman, S., Fugard, J. B. & Pybis, J., (2017) Effectiveness of school-based humanistic counselling for psychological distress in young people. Psychology and Psychotherapy, Theory, Research and Practice https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Peter_Pearce2
Pearce, P., Sewell, R. & Cromarty, K. (2014) School and education settings. In: Pattison, S., Robson, M. and Beynon, A. (eds.) Handbook of counselling children and young people. London: BACP and Sage Publications, pp 415-426
Pearce, P., Sewell, R. & Proud, G. (2014) Groupwork. In: Pattison, S., Robson, M. and Beynon, A. (eds.) Handbook of counselling children and young people London: BACP and Sage Publications, pp 212-228
Pearce, P. (2014) Forty Years on from Rogers' APA Address, ‘Some New Challenges for the Helping Professions’. Self & Society, 41(2), pp 38-44 https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Peter_Pearce2
Pearce, P. & Sommerbeck, L. eds. (2014) Person-Centred Practice at the Difficult Edge. Ross-on-Wye, England: PCCS Books. http://www.pccs-books.co.uk/products/diffult-edge/#.U_YfgvldWL0
Rose Stafford, M., Cooper, M., Barkham, M., Beecham, J., Bower, P., Cromarty, K., Fugard, A., Jackson, C., Pearce, P., Ryder, R. & Street, C. (2018). Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of humanistic counselling in schools for young people with emotional distress (ETHOS): Study protocol for a randomised controlled trial. Trials. 19 (1). https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323671419_Effectiveness_and_cost-effectiveness_of_humanistic_counselling_in_schools_for_young_people_with_emotional_distress_ETHOS_Study_protocol_for_a_randomised_controlled_trial
Vos, J., Roberts, R. & Davies, J. (2019). Mental health in crisis. SAGE: London.