Associate Professor Sarah Gordon
Affiliate Associate Professor
Sarah's personal experience of mental illness shaped her university study with the areas of psychology, medical law, bioethics, and psychological medicine being the focus through to PhD level. Combining this theoretical education and personal experience, Sarah has spent many years working and advocating for an improved mental health sector and societal perceptions of mental health from the perspective of a person who personally experiences mental illness.
Her recent research has focused on mental health legislation, international human rights, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, supported decision-making and mental health advance preference statements.
As a service user academic, she has done this through service user-led and co-produced research that involves meaningful service user involvement in all conceptual and developmental stages of the process, which has also been another research focus.
Sarah has promoted the growth of the service user academia discipline in various ways and particularly as a co-host and convenor of the service user academia symposium.
Rachel Tester
Research Fellow
Email rachel.tester@otago.ac.nz
Rachel is a qualitative researcher with over 12 years’ experience in health communication and health experiences / service-user research on sensitive subjects relating to chronic conditions, mental health and addictions and other stigmatised conditions. She completed her BSc and GradDipSci qualifications in Psychology (social discursive) and uses her personal lived experience of mental distress to inform her work. She works in two departments at the University of Otago of Wellington:
- Primary Health Care and General Practice, where she is a member of the Applied Research on Communication in Healthcare (ARCH) group
- Psychological Medicine, where she helped establish and manage the education and research World of Difference programme, and is currently project managing a large HRC Health Delivery funded project, Enabling supported decision making: Mental Health Advance Preference Statements (MAPS), being implemented at two pilot sites: Te Whatu Ora Waikato and Lakes.
Rachel is passionate about the power of personal narratives to help raise awareness about the social, cultural and political drivers of mental distress and improve health outcomes for those who experience it.
Dr Dasha Fedchuk
Dasha is a registered Clinical Psychologist and service user academic. From 2018 to 2021, she worked at the Department of Psychological Medicine and helped establish the World of Difference programme. Her research focuses on amplifying marginalised voices, collaborating with rainbow youth, and individuals experiencing mental distress. Dasha endorses inclusion of Peer Support within mental health services, drawing from her experience evaluating its effectiveness. Dasha’s career is shaped by her lived experience of mental distress, driving her commitment to social justice, humanistic/recovery-focused approaches, and honouring Te Tiriti. Dasha is an advocate for service user employment across academia and the mental health sector.
Tracey Gardiner
Jess Senior
Jess's passion for mental health and wellbeing has given her a diverse background with a focus on mental health and education. She has worked in NGO , tertiary education, local government, and primary healthcare settings. Jess worked with World of Difference in 2020-2021 across the police and health provider contracts, undertaking training development and adaptation, recruiting and training educators, research, and mentoring other organisations to implement the programme. Jess left to undertake a Doctor of Clinical Psychology, where her lived experience values continue to inform her research and clinical practice.