Vanessa Pinfold

Vanessa is responsible for the Research, Innovation and National Information and Advice Service teams at Rethink Mental Illness. Her PhD from the University of Nottingham in 1999 addressed the challenges of developing community connections for people with severe mental illness. She is also a consultant to the Mental Health Research Network on PPI issues, a member of INVOLVE and holds a honorary lecture post at the Institute of Psychiatry.

Areas of expertise

• Mental health stigma and discrimination
• Carer experiences of mental health services
• Service user and carer involvement in research
• Health services research into complex interventions
• Translating research into practice development initiatives 

Current projects

• Carers and Confidentiality Project
• Viewpoint Survey
• The People Study
• Anti-Stigma Training and Evaluation Collaboration

Selected publications

Pinfold V (2008) Time to change – let’s end mental health discrimination: the challenges ahead (letter to editor) The British Journal of Psychiatry, 193: 507.

Pinfold V, Rapport J, Bellringer S (2007) Developing partnerships with carers through good practice in information sharing. Mental Health Review, 12 (2): 7-14.

Slade M, Pinfold V, Rapaport J et al (2007) Best practice when service users do not consent to sharing information with their carers: national multi-method study. British Journal of Psychiatry190: 148-155.

Morgan C, Burns T, Fitzpatrick, R, Pinfold V, Priebe S (2007) . Social exclusion and mental health: Conceptual and methodological reviewThe  British Journal of Psychiatry, 191: 477-483.

Pinfold V, Byrne P, Toulmin H (2005) Challenging stigma and discrimination in communities: A focus group study identifying UK mental health service users’ main campaign priorities. Int. Journal of Social Psychiatry, 51(2): 128-138. web link

Pinfold V, Huxley P, Thornicroft G et al (2003) Reducing psychiatric stigma and discrimination: Evaluating an educational intervention with the police force in England. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 38: 337-344.

Pinfold V, Huxley P, Thornicroft G et al  (2003) Reducing psychiatric stigma and discrimination: evaluation of educational interventions in UK secondary schools. British Journal of Psychiatry, 182: 342-346.

Pinfold, V., Bindman, J. and Thornicroft, G. et al (2001)  Persuading the persuadable: An evaluation of compulsory treatment in the community using Supervised Discharge Orders. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 36:260-266.