Meet the Directors

FOUNDER AND OPERATIONS DIRECTOR

Jamie has always been community focused and is passionate about tackling stigma and highlighting the positive impact that those with lived experience can have on the City of Derby. 

Jamie believes that lived experience not only incorporates a peer knowledge but also compasses understanding of marginalisation, oppression, stigma and discrimination. 

Jamie's story covers many different paths, his lived experience includes addiction, homelessness, ex forces and depression and has been on his recovery journey now for 20 years.

Combining his lived experience with a career in the public sector and service allows Jamie to have an insight into what Staywell Derby CIC can do to support the work that is happening within the City.

Jamie has worked as a Social Prescriber as well as working for Derby Drug, Alcohol and Recovery Services 

He also is the Chair of the East Midlands Recovery Forum .

In his spare time Jamie runs a non alcoholic Spoken Word event in Derby called Silent Voices

LIVED EXPEREINCE DIRECTOR 

Lauren is passionate about the value of lived experience in improving outcomes and transforming services for people struggling with mental ill-health.

‘Lived experience’ means having specific experience of living with, or living through, something.
 

In Lauren’s case, her lived experience includes Complex Trauma, Depression and Anxiety, as well as recovery, which is ongoing. She combines the experiential knowledge she has gained from these, with skills, knowledge and experience from other areas of her life to improve proactive approaches to mental health, and to support others in their recoveries.

“The magic comes when the wisdom gained during suffering meets the wisdom gained when one get lost in the first place...to create something deeper - an enriched expertise. In order to help others. It is as if the heat of forged wisdom through suffering melts away the ‘frozen assets’ and releases action in a new way” 

(David Gilbert, The Patient Revolution, pg. 30)

Previously working in the NHS as a Speech and Language Therapist, where she specialised in Neurorehabilitation, Lauren applies transferable skills from this to her work as a Lived Experience Director. Some of these skills include communication, multidisciplinary working, goal setting and evidence-based practice, Lauren also brings knowledge from working and becoming ill within this setting, recognising the need to reduce stigma and discrimination towards mental ill-health through patient leadership and organisational training from people with lived experience. She believes strongly that both staff and those using an organisation should be supported to stay well. 

Her motto is “nobody can pour from an empty cup”.

Lauren established CHIME to Thrive, a user-led organisation and close partner of Staywell sharing the same values around patient leadership and community approaches to wellbeing. Here, Lived Experience Practitioners support individuals struggling with their mental health from an experiential perspective. The social enterprise also provides consultancy and training to organisations specific to their needs, including around co-production, peer-support, trauma, and compassion-focussed approaches to mental health.

Lauren has a few letters after her name, having previously studied a BA at York, and MSc. in Newcastle University, however, she maintains her most valuable knowledge has come through her lived experience of trauma, illness and ongoing recovery, and the plethora of challenges that surrounded this, so maintains that ‘MAD’ is her most prestigious qualification.

She is about to complete an MSc in Psychology at Nottingham Trent University and has received a studentship to conduct a PhD there around trauma, peer-support, identity and recovery based around a peer-led, evidence-based recovery course she developed and delivers at a crisis house in Derby, where she was once a patient. 

Lauren is currently involved in patient-public involvement in the East Midlands including Nottingham City Action’s Better Mental Health Collaborative, and Life Links’ Service Development Group, and has presented to Derbyshire clinical and police commissioners, and healthcare professionals, about her own experiences with the aim of improved pathway development for more proactive, and urgent mental healthcare, as well as to students at Derby University for educational purposes. She is a member of the National Survivors User Network, the Research into Recovery Network, and British Psychological Society (student member).

RESEARCH DIRECTOR

David is a Professor of Criminology, where he undertakes research around addiction recovery and desistance from crime.

He leads research into work on desistance from offending, recovery capital, and pathways to addiction recovery. I

David is interested in social identity theory and its implications for recovery, recovery and desistance, addiction treatment effectiveness, prison and community connections, and family experiences of addiction and recovery.

He is also a Honorary Professor in the School of Regulation and Global Governance at The Australian National University and Chair of the Prison Research Network of the British Society of Criminology

He trained as a psychologist and criminologist, and has worked in practice, research, and policy in the areas of addiction recovery and rehabilitation of offenders.

His main research interests are based around recovery from AOD (Alcohol and Other Drug) problems and about treatment effectiveness, and is increasingly interested in social connections and how they grow and change during and after treatment, and what can be done to support engagement in meaningful activities in the local community. 

• He is the Chair of the Prisons Research Network of the British Society of Criminology.
• His previous employers include the Institute of Psychiatry (Kings College London), Strathclyde University, the University of Birmingham, the National Treatment Agency, and the Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit.

COMMUNITY DIRECTOR

Kelly Carson is passionate about building a sense of community and encouraging individuals within it to discover their confidence and empower themselves and each other. 

Having escaped from an abusive relationship, she has used the feelings of anger and injustice from this experience to fuel her recovery and to support other victims and survivors. She is especially aware of the impact of abuse on mental health and uses her experiential knowledge of this to help support victims of domestic abuse. 

Kelly combines this with her experience of involvement in a host of community projects and recognition for the value community brings to healing.

Kelly is compassionate, practical and committed to improving outcomes for others so that they don’t have to go through what she did. She has substantial experience of supporting others, including as a Peer Supporter at Recovery Rocks, Aquarius; as a volunteer for women affected by domestic abuse and as facilitator of the freedom program, which provides information about domestic abuse and the types of tactics used by abusers. 

Kelly was involved in a campaign to save women’s services and won an Inspirational Woman award for outstanding contribution and commitment to empowerment of women in Derby/Derbyshire from Vox Feminarium. 

Embedded in Kelly’s ethos is a sense of community and inclusion. She is a member of Unite Community, and volunteers in a local Library, and has organised a local Playing Out street event to strengthen neighbour relationships; and sits on several community and neighbourhood boards.

Kelly also volunteered with Derby’s Women's Day; was a founding member of IWDD Rebel Choir, and Inanna Street Dance, and organised a women's self defense seminar. 

Kelly loves singing, dancing, art, books, poetry, and writing and believe these have played key roles in her recovery. A sense of altruism and being of service to others in need has also greatly contributed to her healing. She finds humour has helped get her through the worst times and recognises the need to look after her own wellbeing in order to best support others.

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Pippa is a poet, performer, creative writing practitioner, activist and events organiser. 

They are a non binary person with a wide and wild range of lived experience including addiction and mental health issues including Borderline Personality Disorder. 

Pippa is passionate about using creativity and self expression as a vital part of recovery, allowing us to explore our inner worlds, unleash our voices, gain confidence and experience joy.

RECOVERY DIRECTOR

Rosa Bleue Parry has a great deal of lived experience around mental health issues and addiction.

Through her recovery journey she learned a lot about rehabilitation, recovery techniques and interventions. 

She is also a trained SMART recovery facilitator.

Rosa has a great understanding of how an holistic approach to recovery is fundamental to a persons well-being as well as the importance of positive human interaction, whether it’s passing the time of day over a coffee or a structured support session.

She is passionate about helping others to find their recovery path and understands that there are many different ways to recovery and every individuals journey is unique to them. 

‘It’s not how many times you fall down but how many times you get back up.’