Centre for Mental Health

World Suicide Prevention Day is an opportunity to consider not only how we respond when someone is suicidal, but whether we understand the circumstances that can bring someone to that point. For women experiencing domestic abuse, that question is particularly important. Domestic abuse can be a significant contributor to poor mental health and suicidal distress. Yet it is not ...

The African-Caribbean Community Initiative (ACCI) has been offering mental health support in Wolverhampton for almost 40 years. I was lucky enough to visit ACCI’s hub and meet its chief executive Alicia Spence recently.

A fundamental principle of ACCI is that it provides its members (not ...

Group work has long been part of mental health research. Focus groups, workshops, and reflective sessions offer ways to gather insight, test ideas, and hear from those with lived experience. But too often, these formats are treated as neutral tools. A facilitator arrives, a discussion unfolds, transcripts are typed up, themes are extracted. The group becomes a vessel for data...

The Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentence was introduced in England and Wales in 2005. It was intended for people considered dangerous, but whose offence did not merit a life sentence. Like a life sentence, it means a person can be in detention for a potentially unlimited period until they can prove that they are no longer a threat to the public. More than a decad...