Professor Til Wykes receives Equality of Opportunity Award
Professor Til Wykes, Vice-Dean of Psychology and Systems Sciences and Professor of Clinical Psychology and Rehabilitation at King’s College London’s Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN), has been awarded the British Psychological Society (BPS)’s Award for Promoting Equality of Opportunity.
The British Psychological Society is the representative body for psychology and psychologists in the UK. It is responsible for the development, promotion and application of psychology for the public good. The award recognises a psychologist who has made a significant contribution to challenging social inequalities in the UK in relation to gender, race, ethnic origin, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, disability or age.
The BPS Ethics Committee selected Professor Wykes for this award in recognition of her role in championing the active role of mental health service users in research.
Throughout Professor Wykes’ career she has sought to involve mental health service users as active members of research – not just as research participants or consumers. In 2001, Professor Wykes established the Service User Research Enterprise (SURE) at King’s College London. SURE undertakes research to test the effectiveness of services and treatments from the perspective of people with mental health problems and their carers. It aims to involve service users in a collaborative way in the whole research process: from design to data collection, through to data analysis and dissemination of results.
As well as establishing SURE, she sought to increase the representation of service users on the board of, and to change the focus of the published research in, the Journal of Mental Health while she was editor of the journal. These changes were echoed in the journal’s author guidance which encouraged service users as contributing authors.”
Professor Wykes said: “I am delighted to be recognised by the British Psychological Society for my work on promoting equal opportunities for mental health service users. Working with service users is challenging, intellectually stimulating, and overall incredibly rewarding. I will continue to carry out my research with, rather than on, patients and try to demonstrate how this can then have much more impact on mental health and the NHS.”
As the winner of this award, Professor Wykes is invited to deliver the Award Lecture at the BPS Annual Conference, which runs from the 5-7th of May 2015, and will be presented with her award at a ceremony during the conference.
For further information, please contact Claire Hastings, Press Officer, King’s College London’s Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience. Tel: (+44) 207 848 5377 or email: claire.hastings@kcl.ac.uk