About
Julia is an Associate Professor at Swansea University. Her specialist area is mental health, particularly mental health promotion and early intervention. She works closely with Deaf communities to improve healthcare policy and practice to reduce health inequalities that Deaf people experience.
Deaf people are twice as likely as hearing people to experience mental health problems, so following public engagement events, Julia set up the Deaf mental health research centre and now leads and works on projects to improve healthcare experience for Deaf people, which will ultimately improve mental health.
Julia is interested in Deaf awareness and is working with Deaf communities on a Deaf-led eLearning package now available to health professional students. The package is being developed for wider use across Wales for NHS and Care sector staff. A related Morgan Advanced Studies Institute funded project team is exploring how we can improve health staff empathy with Deaf patients. She completed an RCBC Wales funded Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2023, studying what supports hearing parents with deaf children in Wales.
She works closely with Low- and Middle-income country partners and leads the Wales and Africa Health Links Network. Julia is School Lead for Internationalisation and develops learning and exchange experiences for students and partner organisations.
Julia has 30 years’ experience as a mental health nurse, which includes 8 years in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS). The focus of her PhD explored professional mental health nursing identities and service user involvement in nursing processes. Julia has held leadership roles in the NHS and in Higher Education involving liaison with internal and external bodies, relating to service provision, organisation and quality assurance. She works closely with third sector agencies.
Julia is currently studying British Sign Language (BSL) Level 4. She is available for media engagement.