Widening access to psychological interventions for diverse communities: Exploring the potential of community-led interventions

Brighton and Sussex Medical School are offering a 3-year PhD scholarship (full time or 5 years part-time) to be based in the Department of Primary Care and Public Health. We welcome applications to undertake health and social care services research and/or evaluation commencing in September/October 2020. The studentships is linked to the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration Kent, Surrey and Sussex which aims to develop applied health and social care research across the region for the benefit of patients and the public.

We welcome applications from prospective students interested in community-based mental health interventions. This project will be supervised by Dr Elizabeth Ford and Dr Clio Berry from BSMS with Dr Clara Strauss from Sussex Partnership Foundation NHS Trust.
This PhD studentship aims to widen access to evidence-based mental health psychological interventions for common mental health problems to members of our communities who may be reluctant to access traditional NHS-based services. Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) is the NHS service in England with the remit of widening access to these interventions, however we know that people accessing IAPT are not representative of the communities they serve in terms of gender, age, ethnicity or socio-demographic status. This PhD studentship will aim to: (a) develop an understanding of barriers and facilitators to seeking psychological support for mental health difficulties in our communities, including digital considerations (b) co-produce a community-led evidence-based psychological support for people experiencing emerging, subthreshold and mild common mental health problems in consultation with and supported by local GP and mental health IAPT services such as experiments with primary care co-location, and (c) evaluate the feasibility and preliminary indicators of effectiveness of the co-produced service.

We are looking for students who are enthusiastic about applied health and social care research and can become part of the research communities within ARC KSS and BSMS. Applicants will have completed a psychology, health or social care related postgraduate training course at Master’s level equivalent to merit or distinction with a substantial research training component (such as an ESRC recognised training course), or be willing to undertake additional research methods training.