Staff Profile
Samantha Jayne Goddard
PhD Researcher
I am a HCPC registered Art Psychotherapist, mental health practitioner, artist and researcher based in York. I completed my undergraduate in Photography and was awarded a First Class BA with Honours from Teesside University, before achieving a Master’s Degree in Art Psychotherapy Practice with Distinction at the Northern School for Art Psychotherapy and Leeds Beckett University. I am registered to practice Art Psychotherapy with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) and am a member of the British Association of Art Therapists.
I have a background as an artist, community arts facilitator and art psychotherapist, as well as having worked in health, mental health and wellbeing across the VCSE sector, within the NHS, and with the local authority in York over the past decade. My master’s research explored the history, controversies and current treatment of medically unexplained symptoms in the UK, and the potential for exploring the mind/body diagnostic divide with creative approaches and art psychotherapy.
I am currently a Doctoral student at York St John University where I am completing a PhD in Counselling, Psychotherapy and Mental Health, as part of the York St John Counselling and Therapy Research Group. My thesis focuses on the development of a novel Community Mental Health Hub Model in York as part of the Connecting Our City systems change project.
My research interests include cultural change in mental health, radical approaches to mental health, creativity and mental health and arts based research.
- School – School of Education, Language and Psychology
- Email – samantha.Goddard@yorksj.ac.uk
Further information
Research
My PhD research began in July 2022 and explores York’s innovative Connecting Our City mental health transformation project. The key aim of the Connecting Our City project is to develop a whole-community approach to mental health and wellbeing.
I am researching non-pathologising approaches to mental health care which move away from a medical model to a community based, strengths focused approach - as well as the importance of coproduction and active citizenship in community mental health. This research has a strong focus on inclusion and collaboration with individuals with lived experiences of mental ill health and staff and partner experiences of the process of systems change.
Specific areas of inquiry involve current theoretical approaches to community mental health care in England, the Trieste mental health care model, community mental health hubs, partnership working/colocation and organisational culture, and the challenges and opportunities created for learning for both frontline staff and those accessing mental health support during cultural shifts in service design and delivery.
I bring my background as an art psychotherapist and artist practitioner into my research by considering alternative research outputs and using creative research methodologies as part of data generation. I hope to capture the voices of people often left out of research, such as the staff and community members involved in coproduction and delivery of service transformation, by exploring different ways of understanding the complex systems involved in mental health service design and delivery.
