• Question: Where do you want to see your research going in the future?

    Asked by Katie10 to Jack, Gem, Jermaine, Michelle, Steve on 12 Jun 2017. This question was also asked by Soph.
    • Photo: Jermaine Ravalier

      Jermaine Ravalier answered on 12 Jun 2017:

      In the near future, i.e. in the next 6-12 months, I want my research changing governmental policy. The Labour party in particular is a huge supporter of one of the organisations that I work with (the Social Worker’s Union), and so I’d like to work in order to shape the Labour party approach to social care and education. I have a couple of huge studies that have run over the summer (one with over 15,000 teachers and a second with about 2,000 social workers – the biggest ever studies done in this country), and so I hope to be able to do that especially with the results of the election!

    • Photo: Michelle Jamieson

      Michelle Jamieson answered on 12 Jun 2017:

      I see my future research going on to help people design, and decide on what they want to see ‘treatment-wise’. Currently a lot of mental health (and physical treatments) are designed and put into practice with little ‘patient’ input. So letting people have more of a role in designing them from the start could potentially save money, waste less time, and go further in helping people!

    • Photo: Steven Brown

      Steven Brown answered on 13 Jun 2017:

      In the short-term, my research will be brought into standard clinical practice in NHS Scotland meaning that the results of my work will have directly impacted upon the lives of thousands of people with cancer. The research will help make better, more personalised clinical decision making to ensure people with cancer receive the most appropriate treatment to best suit their unique circumstances.

      In the long-term, I hope to return to researching the applications of music in health and wellbeing contexts and to explore the possibility of using music as a way in which people can manage their moods and emotions and create positive environments to learn, work, and play. Music is cheap, portable, and non-toxic (unlike medicines) which makes it an excellent resource for helping people and improving their mental health.

      I’m writing a book just now on the back of my PhD research (a VERY LONG piece of work) so I am sort of focused on that just now.

    • Photo: Gemma Taylor

      Gemma Taylor answered on 13 Jun 2017:

      I’d like to have an impact on how people with mental illnesses are treated for smoking.

    • Photo: Jack barton

      Jack barton answered on 14 Jun 2017:

      My aim is to further support the importance of quality sleep for our mental health. Sleep has largely been seen as of secondary importance in the field of mental and regarded as a symptom of the illness itself. However, my work shows that poor sleep can increase our risk for mental health difficulties in a direct (hallucinations and paranoia) and indirect (poor ability to deal with negative emotions) manner. This is important as it is a relatively easy risk factor to address and there are quality apps available to improve sleep. As a result, I would like to illustrate the effectiveness of mobile phone delivered interventions for poor sleep and insomnia on our mental health and overall functioning after my PhD. The hope is that this would help society see sleep as something we can’t just skip indefinitely!

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