Working in Mental Health and Wellbeing
Kelly Chung - said "I'm a Research Assistant based in the Academic Unit of Mental Health and Wellbeing. I find the department an extremely friendly and supportive place to work. There is a culture to encourage peer supports; you can always reach out to colleagues at all levels from professors and administrators, to my peers for guidance and advice.
This is also a non-hierarchical environment; communication is open and transparent. Every member of Mental Health and Wellbeing are encouraged to get involved and have their opinion valued.
In terms of development, my line manager has always been very understanding and supportive since day one. He encourages me to develop my career and personal development, even flexible working hours might be required in some circumstances.
Among all these, what I love most about working in the department are the people and the culture, which makes the department a place where you feel you belong, are valued and are able to progress".
Professor Jonathan Evans - said "The School of Health and Wellbeing is a stimulating and supportive place in which to work. What is important to me is that there is a genuine focus on delivering both applied research with global impact and high quality education. A real strength is the wide range of disciplines represented in the School, which is vital for the sort of research many of us do - in current research projects I am working with colleagues from backgrounds in Clinical Psychology, Psychiatry, Biostatistics, Geriatric Medicine, Public Health, General Practice, Computing Science, Physiotherapy, Psychology and Neurology, most of whom are located within the School of Health and Wellbeing. There is real focus on achieving global impact in health and wellbeing improvement in the School. For example, one strand of my research is working with colleagues to develop tools for the assessment of cognition in India, Thailand and the Middle East, where the prevalence of dementia is set to rise considerably given increases in standards of living and life expectancy. In terms of education, there is real commitment amongst my colleagues to provide the highest quality of professional training - I am Programme Director of the MSc Clinical Neuropsychology programme and we train clinical psychologists who are specialising in Clinical Neuropsychology. Teaching this group is a real pleasure because they are highly committed professionals who bring the best out of the lecturers who teach them, something that is reflected in feedback from students: "...this course is without doubt the best single academic course I have ever done" ... "The knowledge and understanding I have acquired from the course have transformed me as a clinical psychologist and the impact on my work and practice is profound".
Susan Irving - graduated from Glasgow Caledonian University with a BA Honours in Social Sciences with Specialism in Psychology in 2011. She currently works full time on the FOCUS Trial, which is a 4-year multi-centre randomised controlled trial of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia spectrum disorder who are continuing to experience positive symptoms of psychosis or an inability to tolerate Clozapine.
Previous to her current post, Susan worked for the Scottish Mental Health Research Network supporting a number of Clinical Research Trials: BEST-Best Services Trial/Evaluation of the New Orleans Intervention for Infant Mental Health; CR:ISP - (Compassionate Recovery: Individualised Support in early Psychosis). - Implementing improvement strategies based on an Integratred Care Pathway for Early Psychosis; from genotype to psychiatric genotype: serotonergic function in adults with Prader-Willi syndrome; The TOP-COG Study - towards onset prevention of cognition decline in adults with Down Syndrome.
Susan also has research interests in Positive Psychology, Post traumatic growth in the context of mental health, recovery, resilience and psychosis.
Professor Helen Minnis - said "My research career benefitted a great deal from the forward thinking of my seniors in the University of Glasgow, when my children were small. At that time, I worked part time and did some of my work sessions in the evening to allow me more time with the family during the day. Those evening sessions were a wonderfully peaceful interruption-free opportunity to concentrate on writing and I would recommend this pattern of working to anyone, male of female with a young family".