People

Peter, a researcher working with IVR, is Visiting Professor at the University of East Anglia and Co-Chair of Shaping Our Lives, the user led organisation and network as a long-term user of mental health services. He has a longstanding track record of work in the field of participation and citizen involvement as academic, service user, researcher, educator and activist.

Linda, a researcher working with IVR, is leading on developing projects exploring community provision for people living with dementia and collaborating with the NIHR funded Applied Research Collaboration East of England Inclusive Involvement in Research for Practice Led Health and Social Care theme.

Sara, a researcher working with IVR on projects such as ‘Volunteering and Wellbeing and ‘Employer Supported Volunteering’, is Professor of Personnel Economics at UEA.

Kate, a researcher working with IVR, is studying for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy at UEA’s School of Politics, Philosophy, language and Communication Studies.

Joanna, a researcher working with IVR to develop a project to strengthen language support for underserved communities in acute clinical, health and social care, is Professor of Translation, at the UEA School of Politics, Philosophy, Language and Communication Studies.

Sally, a member of the IVR Advisory Panel, has worked in the NHS for 19 years and has held positions in Patient Services, Bereavement Services and PALS prior to taking up the role of Voluntary Services Lead for the Norfolk & Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. As well as an internal team of almost 700 volunteers, Sally manages and supports a portfolio of external volunteer groups affiliated to her Trust and has created a service framework to promote partnership working where there is potential for links to support specialist clinical services. Sally has been a member of the National Association of Voluntary Services Managers (NAVSM) in 2004 and was appointed as Vice Chair in 2016. She is passionate about identifying and implementing strategic development and service change while creating greater volunteer satisfaction. Her role on the NEC provides opportunities to work Nationally with partners to influence change and promote the value and growth of volunteering in healthcare.

Heather, a member of the IVR Advisory Panel, is a musicologist and musician taught at UEA and University of Cambridge, Madingley Hall. She later set up the voluntary organisation Come Singing which provides over twenty therapeutic singing groups monthly in Norwich for Age UK, NSFT, NHS, Barchester, NCC, Norse and in the community. Her idea of Music Mirrors, simple written audio biographical cues added to care plans arose from this. It is currently the subject of a 4 year intervention study at Zurich University and part of an ethnographic study, Care for Music, led by Exeter University and University of Bergen. Heather was awarded a BEM in 2017 for services to dementia.

Jurgen, the Director of the Institute for Volunteering Research, manages its day to day activities and will lead IVR into its next phase as a research centre at UEA.

Irene, a researcher working with IVR on the project ‘Mobilising UK Voluntary action, is Professor of Public Policy at the Northumbria University.

Mark, a member of the IVR Advisory Panel, is Managing Director of UEA Health & Social Care Partners (UEAHSCP), launched in 2018. UEAHSCP is a multi-organisational partnership made up of 12 partners working together to improve health and social care for our region. Mark has worked at UEA for 10 years managing the Norwich Business School and the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences. Mark has also worked in educational organisations in the public and private sector over the last twenty years and studied and worked in the US, Russia, Italy, Slovenia and Poland.

Véronique, a member of the IVR Advisory Panel, has more than 15 years of experience in social research. She has a particular interest in: voluntary action in communities, trends and drivers impacting on the voluntary sector’s operating environment, new ways of conducting research and communicating findings. Véronique volunteers at The Stone Space, a community-led art gallery in Leytonstone.

Kathleen, a researcher working with IVR, focuses on the well-being of older, vulnerable and hard-to-reach groups. Much of her recent research explores the lived experience of older people living in care homes. She has a keen interest in volunteering in sheltered housing and through her links with IVR hopes to co-develop voluntary action with older people in the community.

Ben, a member of the IVR Advisory Panel and a researcher working with IVR, teaches across politics and media modules in PSI, most notably a practice module called Activist Campaigning, which has seen students work with Greenpeace, Generation Rent and People and Planet on live campaigns. He is currently Associate Dean for Engagement and Innovation in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities. Ben is co-lead on the project ‘Fine City Neighbours Network: connect to connect’, which is supporting people who have multiple barriers to going online.

Mike, a member of the IVR Advisory Panel, has worked as a volunteer, researcher and writer, teacher and consultant with voluntary action since getting involved in community organisations in North Kensington in the 1970s. At University of East London he developed teaching and research on voluntary organisations and volunteering, and was joint founder of the Institute for Volunteering Research with Volunteering England. Subsequently, at Volunteering England and the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO), he led on policy and management for volunteering. He is Honorary Research Fellow with the Centre for Philanthropy, University of Kent. He co-wrote the fourth edition of The Complete Volunteer Management Handbook (Directory of Social Change, 2019).

Chris, a researcher working with IVR on questions of volunteering and development, is a Researcher with the UNESCO Chair in Adult Literacy and Learning for Social Transformation based at the School of Education and Lifelong Learning of UEA. Chris is currently working for the consortium commissioned to provide evidence for the ‘State of the World’s Volunteerism Report’ of United Nations Volunteers.

Bridget, a member of the IVR Advisory Panel, first became involved in volunteering as a teenager in Devon and following her undergraduate studies, obtained a year-long post with a University Student’s Union as a Student Community Action Co-ordinator, both co-ordinating and developing student voluntary action in different sectors of the local community. Since qualifying as a social worker and then moving into academic positions, although volunteering has not been central to her career, one of the early research studies that she led concerned training volunteers in 3 European countries to work with older people with dementia in residential care settings. Bridget is currently a Reader in Mental Health of Older People in the School of Health Sciences at the University of East Anglia (UEA). She retains a keen interest in voluntary action and volunteering.

Guy, a researcher working with IVR, is leading a project investigating the characteristics and role of volunteers in well-connected end of life care at UEA.

Fiona, a member of the IVR Delivery Group and IVR Advisory Panel, is the academic lead for volunteering research at UEA and the Inclusion Research Theme lead. She will lead on a range of projects, for example, considering the role of volunteering to support inclusion and the questions of exclusion in volunteering.

Kerensa, a member of the IVR Advisory Panel, works as the Volunteering and Mentoring Administrator within the Careers Service at UEA. Kerensa works with students at UEA to help them find volunteering opportunities and provide resources and support around volunteering. Alongside this she works directly with voluntary organisations and networks to engage with students, recruit volunteers and raise their profile on campus. She has been involved personally in volunteering for many years since starting when a teenager.

Anna, a researcher working with IVR, is Professor of Education at the School of Education and Lifelong Learning, and holds the UNESCO Chair in Adult Literacy and Learning for Social Transformation. Anna is leading the consortium commissioned to provide evidence for the ‘State of the World’s Volunteerism Report’ of United Nations Volunteers.

Colin, a visiting researcher at IVR, is Honorary Research Fellow at University of Kent, and was the lead author of Volunteering and Society in the 21st Century (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010) the sole author of the ground-breaking Rethinking Voluntary Action: the beat of a different drum (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) and co-editor of the Handbook on Hybrid Organisations (Edward Elgar, 2020).

Ros, a member of the IVR Advisory Panel, has been a member of the House of Lords since May 2000 and has held a variety of front bench positions including Communities and Local Government, building on her membership of Suffolk County Council between 1993 and 2005. Her interest in the community and voluntary sector was born out of this this work, and Ros has worked with Volunteering England and NCVO, as well as being a Trustee of Community Action Suffolk, the infrastructure body for the County.

Ewen, a researcher working with IVR, is Professor of Medical Sociology in the School of Health and Social Care at the University of Essex.

Joanna, a researcher working with IVR, is an independent researcher and evaluator.

Ritchie, a researcher working with IVR, is a Senior Research Associate at the Norwich Business School.