Coproduction

Julian Raffay was working as Specialist Chaplain (Research, Education and Development) until his post at Mersey Care was cut in March 2020. Since then, he has completed his professional doctorate on the relationship between mental health services and faith communities with particular emphasis on the ethics of coproduction. He returned briefly to church ministry as Interim Team Rector in an economically disadvantaged parish in Liverpool. He is now Director of Chaplaincy Studies at St Padarn's Institute, Cardiff. - Don Bryant was formerly a bank manager, set up a management training company with diverse clients across the north-west of England, then joined Imagine, a Liverpool-based mental health charity, before setting up an educational, training and employment centre for recovering drug users before becoming ill with severe depression in 2008. Since 2009 he has acted in numerous capacities as a service user and carer representative, winning the Chairman's Award in 2015. He also served as a trustee of the national Mental Health Network. - Pamela Fisher is an independent researcher. Until May 2019, she was a Reader in Social & Health Citizenship at Leeds Beckett University, having previously held academic posts at the universities of Sheffield, Huddersfield, Liverpool and Leeds. Her work offers critical sociological perspectives on resilience, wellbeing and mental health, particularly from the perspectives of marginalised and socially under-valued groups. - Mick McKeown is Professor of Democratic Mental Health, School of Nursing, University of Central Lancashire and a trade union activist with Unison, playing a role in union strategising on professional nursing. He has published widely in the mental health field, including co-editing the recent textbook Essentials of Mental Health Nursing. - Catherine Mills has worked as Service User and Carer Lead with Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust since 2012, where she is responsible for the engagement and involvement of service users and carers across Merseyside. Originally she was involved with the trust as a service user. Her current role includes research, where she has been involved in several projects that have been coproduced with service users and carers. - Tim Thornton is Professor of Philosophy and Mental Health in the School of Nursing at the University of Central Lancashire. As well as contemporary philosophy of thought and language, his research mainly concerns conceptual issues in mental healthcare and he has published papers on clinical judgement, idiographic and narrative understanding, the interpretation of psychopathology and recovery, as well as numerous books. He was a co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry and is a senior editor of the journal Philosophy, Psychiatry and Psychology.