Stacey Jennings

Stacey followed these interests by moving to London to undertake an MSc in Mental Health Services and Population Research at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London. This course sharpened her critical analysis skills, increased her knowledge in application of research paradigms within mental health, and crucially, highlighted areas of disparity and inequality that required improvement.

Gaining invaluable experience working in the research environment of several prestigious universities, including NIHR projects focused on improving perinatal mental health and alcohol services, further confirmed for Stacey that this was the path she wanted to follow. Her interest in the interface between addiction and mental health was reignited through listening to service user stories detailing the lack of service provision that met all their individual mental, physical and substance use needs.

Between 2019-2023, Stacey was awarded a Barts Health Charity funded studentship to undertake a PhD at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL). During this PhD, Stacey explored alcohol use and support experiences of UK South Asian communities. Stacey presented her PhD findings at the 2022 Society for Study of Addiction Conference and authored a blog for the Scottish Health Action on alcohol problems to improve ethnicity standards across alcohol literature. Stacey’s findings also informed the 2022 Tower Hamlets Patient Experience Committee for Drug and Alcohol Services.

Since completing her PhD, Stacey has secured three postdoctoral positions in addition to having her daughter – it’s been a busy time! In addition to supervising student dissertations, Stacey is leading Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) activity related to assertive outreach within the South London Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) alcohol theme. In reflection, Stacey’s passion for ensuring lived experience is at the heart of her research. Stacey is also an active member of the Bi-directional Mentoring Programme hosted by the Policy Research Unit (PRU) in addictions, where she meets regularly with people who have lived experience of substance misuse as they share experiences and learn from each other’s insights.

Stacey is excited to further her work in reducing ethnic inequalities in alcohol harm by actioning key recommendations from her PhD within her NIHR Fellowship.