I worked as an occupational therapist in adult mental health services before becoming a senior lecturer in occupational therapy at the University of Brighton. I got interested in resilience while researching the return-to-work experiences of workers with mental health problems for my PhD. As with much of the work Boingboing does, this research found that resilience arose from a combination of internal and external factors and my study in particular, found that this understanding of resilience can help explain how people can be supported to return to work in a sustainable manner that respects their well-being.
Consequently, I am now collaborating with the Boingboing network to learn more about resilience and am exploring the relevance of resilience to adults. I am specifically interesting in adapting the Resilience Framework and some of its practices for use with adults. I have also really valued and used the collaborative approach Boingboing promotes, to combine the expertise and knowledge of people with lived experience, practitioners and academics for research and practice development.
