Carla Searle
Patient and Public Involvement Facilitator
Contact:
Email address: c.r.searle@bham.ac.uk
PPI
Patient and Public Involvement Facilitator
Biography
Carla joined the Mental Health Mission in April 2024, bringing extensive experience in working with children and young people across a variety of youth and community & educational settings. From beginning as a Youth Worker at Barnardo’s, where she worked as a Development Worker in Youth Arts, to various Voice Development and Participation roles in the Youth Service and Children First. In recent years, Carla has focused on mental health, serving as a mental health mentor and pastoral tutor, specialising in addressing the needs of young people.
Carla has also worked to bridge the gap between education, health, and social care during her time as an Outreach and Engagement Officer with Healthwatch Warwickshire. In this role, she facilitated important conversations within the Integrated Care System (ICS) to emphasise the need to work collaboratively across sectors when tackling mental health, whilst also recognising and implementing youth voice into the process.
At the Midlands Translational Centre, Carla is eager to apply her knowledge and passion for working with young people while also amplifying the voices of marginalized communities. She looks forward to engaging with communities, listening to young people’s experiences, and driving positive change across the Midlands.
Max Carlish
Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement Co-Lead
NIHR Pre-doctoral Fellow
Contact:
Email address: m.carlish@bham.ac.uk
PPI
Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement Co-Lead
NIHR Pre-doctoral Fellow
Biography
After gaining an MA from Oxford University and pursuing a career as an award-winning filmmaker, Max Carlish decided to use his decades of lived experience of severe mental illness to contribute to mental health research; as chair and founder of Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Foundation Trust’s first lived experience research group and then as a National Institute Health Research Pre-doctoral Fellow. Max has also led patient and public involvement for several major NIHR research trials, and co-authored papers and book chapters on various aspects of mental health.
Niyah Campbell
- Senior Public and Patient Involvement (PPI) Lead, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham
Contact:
Email address:
PPI
Senior Public and Patient Involvement (PPI) Lead, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham
Biography
PPI Lead for EPICare – supporting the involvement of public members with lived experience of psychosis or experience of providing care/support to someone with lived experience in the design and delivery of EPICare.
Route to this role: I started my career in PPI when I joined the Institute for Mental Health, University of Birmingham in 2018. At that point, I worked to set up a pathway for the involvement of young experts by experience in the involvement of the Institute through forming and sustaining the engagement of the IMH Youth Advisory Group. Since then, I have taken on a role in the School where my role is more focussed around working on funded projects and capacity building.
