Joy is a member of the Public Contributor Involvement and Engagement Advisory Group of the NIHR Policy Research Unit in Health and Social Care Workforce.

"I have been involved in the Carers Section both on a professional and personal level. In a project partnered by the local authority and the voluntary sector, I set up and ran a telephone befriending scheme in Camden for older people which ran successfully for many years and continued under new auspices after the scheme ended. This meant my being in touch with the members of the scheme who were receiving care from local authority and other agencies or being carers themselves. As well as a listening ear, the project was able to support members in other ways too, for example by referring them to local agencies who would be able to meet their various needs.

On a personal level, I have been involved over 15 years with the mental health services as an informal carer for my son following a diagnosis of a disability. In the last five years, I have been bringing up my granddaughter for whom I am also a Special Guardian. I am a member of Grandparents Plus, an organisation that supports kinship carers and have lately joined their band of ‘Someone Like Me’ volunteers who support people who have recently become Special Guardians by listening to their stories and sharing their experience as only someone in their shoes can."