Lived Experiences of Distress Research Group (LEOD)
Supported by funding from the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR), Leverhulme, the Economic and Social Research Council and the Wellcome trust, our research group advances psychological understandings of mental health challenges and service use across a diverse range of groups, including children and young people, general adult, Black and Minority ethnic groups, forensic services and LGBTQ+ groups.
We hold established and emerging links with researchers across the globe, including scholars in the Global South and North. As mental health challenges continue to rise, particularly among the most disadvantaged in society, our mission is to alleviate this burden of inequality.
Collaborating closely with individuals who experience distress, we leverage a broad range of methodologies, both traditional and innovative. These include Randomized Controlled Trials, qualitative and visual methods, memory work and mixed methods studies. Embracing a user-led ethos and democratization of knowledge production, we explore how service users, lived experience experts and practitioners can collaborate effectively in the improvement of research protocols and service provision more generally.
Our research on distress and mental health covers issues of memory, the environment and space, trauma, family dynamics, designs of cities and inpatient services, sexuality, help-seeking, inequalities, service use and discrimination. Our work on mental health has directly fed into local and national policy and service delivery improvements.
With a wealth of expertise including trial design, experimentation, visual methods and qualitative methodologies and Randomized Controlled Trials, we are at the forefront of innovative approaches to understand the conditions of living that lead to distress and how best to tackle these complex psychological and social issues.
Core Members
- Paula Reavey
- Daniel Frings
- Patrick Callaghan
- Ope Atanda
- Eleni Vangeli
- Harriet Higgins
- Richard Batty
- Elisa Lewis
- Allan Tyler
- Preethi Premkumar
- Sarah Church
- Lucy Johnstone
- Jacqui Dillon
- Steve Brown
- Andrew Grundy
- Katharine Lazenby
- Tim Carter
- Katharine Harding
- Peter Bullimore
PhD Students / Research Assistants
- Bethany Gardner
- Donna Ciarlo
- Charlotte Taylor-Page
- Rai Waddingham
- James Binnie
- Temi Onasanya
- Cath Jenkins
- Ebony Baker
- Jessica Collier
National Institute for Health and Care Research – in collaboration with Embers the Dragon LTD i4i funding: £1, 868700. Protocol: Effectiveness of an online intervention for parents/guardians of children aged 4–7 years who are concerned about their child’s emotional and behavioural development: protocol for an online randomised controlled trial (EMERGENT study)/
Link to study web page: EMERGENT Study (lsbu.ac.uk)
National Institute for Health and Care Research – in collaboration with King’s college, London: Comparison of Effectiveness and Cost-Effectiveness of Intensive Community Care Services versus Usual Inpatient Care for Young People with Psychiatric Emergencies (IVY): An Internal Pilot followed by a Randomized Controlled Trial Comprising All Intensive Community Service Care Teams in Great Britain: £1, 866800.
Links to NIHR funder page with details and protocol: Evaluation of Intensive Community Care Services, an RCT - Health Research Authority (hra.nhs.uk)
Mental Health First Aid England: Evaluation of Mental Health First Aid from the Perspective Of Workplace End UseRs – EMPOWER: Funded by Mental Health First Aid England.
Link to protocol paper: Evaluation of Mental Health First Aid from the Perspective Of Workplace End UseRs-EMPOWER: protocol of cluster randomised trial phase - PubMed (nih.gov)
NIHR - EQUIP: Enhancing Service user and carer involvement in care planning, £1,800,000: NIHR https://www.journalslibrary.nihr.ac.uk/pgfar/pgfar07090/#/abstract
National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR): in collaboration with Queen Mary, University of London, and Ukraine Institute of Health: NIHR Global Health Research Group on Developing And Integrating mobile community mental health Services In Ukraine (DAISI Ukraine): £3.1 million.
Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC): Schools as Enabling Spaces to Improve Learning and Health-Related Quality of Life for Primary School Children in Rural Communities in South Africa, £ 1,999686.76, https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/departments-and-centres/centres/ucl-centre-educational-leadership/schools-enabling-spaces-improve-learning-and-health-related-quality-life
- Professor Dennis Ougrin – Queen Mary, University of London
- Professor Morten Nissen; University of Aarhus
- Professor John Sutton: University of Macquarie and the University of Stirling
- Tim Shaw: CEO Hospital Rooms
- Hannah Chamberlain: Design in Mental Health Network, UK
- Peter Bullimore: National Paranoia Network, UK
- Jacqui Dillon: International Society for Psychological and Social Approaches to Psychosis
- Prof Karina Lovell, University of Manchester
- Dr Owen Price, University of Manchester
- Prof Liesel Ebersohn, University of Pretoria, South Africa
- Prof Alex Parker, Victoria University, Australia
- Prof Agners Higgins, University of Dublin, Trinity College, Ireland