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Steve Gillard

Professor of Mental Health

School of Health & Psychological Sciences Department of Nursing

Contact details

Address

Steve Gillard MG21 , Myddelton Street Building [M]
City, University of London
Northampton Square
London EC1V 0HB
United Kingdom

About

Overview

Steve is a mental health services researcher whose research takes a social and community perspective on mental health. He has a particular interest in evaluating approaches to mental health care that validate the way in which people make sense of their own mental health, build relationships and enable connection to community, including interventions that are developed, delivered and led by people who have used mental health services. He leads an internationally recognised programme of NIHR-funded research on peer support in mental health services, currently exploring adaptation of peer support into different specialist mental health settings, peer-leadership roles in mental health services and online peer support.
Steve has other research interests in support for mental health crisis, addressing persistent health inequalities including race and mental health, and trauma-informed approaches to mental health care. His research takes a critical approach to the coproduction of knowledge, supporting and enabling researchers working from an explicitly experiential and survivor perspective to shape and change the way mental health research is done. Having begun as a qualitative researcher, his research brings randomised controlled trials and quasi-experimental methods together with experiential knowledge to provoke and produce new insight.
Steve joined City in 2020 having previously been Professor of Social and Community Mental Health at St George’s, University of London (where he remains Visiting Professor). Prior to entering academia in 2005 he was a researcher for a local branch of the mental health charity Mind where he established and trained one of the UK’s first service user researcher teams. His formative research experiences explored youth, identity and conflict in the former-Yugoslavia.

Research students

1st supervisor

Publications

Publications by category

Chapters (3)

  • King, C., Clarke, S., Gillard, S. and Fulford, B. (2021). Beyond the Color Bar: Sharing Narratives in Order to Promote a Clearer Understanding of Mental Health Issues Across Cultural and Racial Boundaries. International Perspectives in Values-Based Mental Health Practice (pp. 403–409). Springer International Publishing. ISBN 978-3-030-47851-3.
  • Gillard, S., Foster, R. and Sweeney, A. (2020). Experiential knowledge in mental health services, research and professional education. The Routledge Handbook of Service User Involvement in Human Services Research and Education (pp. 41–53). Routledge.
  • Turner, K. and Gillard, S. (2011). 'Still out there?' Is the service user voice becoming lost as user involvement moves into the mental health research mainstream? Critical Perspectives on User Involvement (pp. 189–200). ISBN 978-1-84742-750-2.

Journal articles (94)