Donna Franklin

I have a background in both clinical and health psychology, having completed a Masters in Health Psychology in 2008, exploring a cultural eating anxiety distress expressed amongst British Pakistani Muslim adolescent females, after having previously completed three years of a doctorate in Clinical Psychology.

After this, I joined the University of Nottingham’s Institute of Mental Health, becoming part of the Narrative Experiences ONline (NEON) research programme as both researcher and Lived Experience Advisory Group member.   As part of the three-armed pragmatic clinical trial, I have contributed to a wide variety of programme activities (curation, publication and systematic reviews)  related to the innovative use of recovery narratives for the treatment and care of psychosis and other common mental health problems. 

From there, I joined the McPin Foundation working across two projects, as co-lead of the Lived Experience Advisory Group for the "AddRessing the ImpAct of COVID-19 paNdEmic on the access to and experience of care of people from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic groups with severe mental illness" (ARIADNE) study, a multi-site experience-based co-designed (EBCD) project developing mental health service design actions to facilitate better access, experience and outcomes for racialised communities and second, a systems change developmental evaluation of the Black Thrive Lambeth Employment Project.

In March 2023, I joined the University of Sheffield as a research associate in SCHARR, leading an evaluation implementation of the NHS’s first anti-racism framework, the Patient Carer Race Equality Framework (PCREF).