Meet the team Professor Rebecca Lawton (Theme Lead) r.j.lawton@leeds.ac.uk Ruth Simms-Ellis (Theme Manager) r.simms-ellis@leeds.ac.uk Ruth is a psychologist with over 20 years’ experience of working in the field of occupational health psychology. She has a BSc in Psychology from the University of Leeds, an MSc Occupational Psychology from the University of Leicester and is currently studying for her PhD at the University of Leeds. As an organisational consultant and trainer Ruth has collaborated with diverse organisations to help them reduce stress, build resilience and enhance team functioning, through individual coaching, team workshops, Management Development Programmes and Human Resources support. Ruth has also worked extensively with people exposed to traumatic events. In the financial services industry, she supported teams involved in armed robberies and developed a national anticipatory anxiety programme to boost team resilience in the event of a robbery. As a clinician, she worked in the Ministry Defence’s Department of Clinical Psychology, assessing and treating military personnel with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Prior to joining the team, Ruth was a researcher at the University of Leeds. In the School of Psychology, she managed a large cluster randomised controlled trial testing a complex intervention to reduce smoking initiation in adolescents, and helped evaluate mechanisms of change resulting from a Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction programme for staff. In the Psychological Therapies Research Centre, where she worked on a national survey of counsellors working in primary care. She lectures on the School of Psychology’s undergraduate and post-graduate programmes at the University of Leeds. Cathy provides administration support for the EBT Theme within CLAHRC YH. Cathy is based at the Bradford Institute for Health Research, and her role is to administrate and co-ordinate specific research projects and programmes within the quality and patient safety research programme. Dr Laura Sheard Laura.sheard@bthft.nhs.uk Dr Lesley Dewhurst Lesley.Dewhurst@bthft.nhs.uk Lesley has a BSc in Psychology, an MA in Health research, and a PhD awarded from the University of Bradford where she explored the experience of children and families with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder to identify barriers and enablers to behaviour management. A nurse practitioner by profession, Lesley’s interest in healthcare delivery led to a career in academia as a senior lecturer. She has attracted funding from Marie Curie 7th FWP, NHS SHA, European Commission, ENB, and HEFCE, from which she has conducted research into the effectiveness of education meeting clinical practice needs, team working, innovation in clinical practice, patient experience of healthcare, and variation in policy and practice. Lesley joined the Institute for Health Research in Bradford as a senior research fellow as is a member of the quality and safety team. Lesley is currently working on the following collaborative projects; positive deviance, the patient’s experience of quality and safety in health care, and evidence based transformation with the NHS. Professor Robbie Foy R.Foy@leeds.ac.uk Dr Katja Grasic katja.grasic@york.ac.uk |