Dr. Rebecca Murphy’s work focuses on amplifying and integrating the knowledge of Experts by Experience in both our health and research systems. She has extensive experience of conducting participatory methodologies with ‘minoritized’ communities, including people from BME and Indigenous Australian backgrounds and people with experiential knowledge of mental health difficulties, homelessness, and forced migration.
Rebecca works in collaborative partnerships with peer researchers and/or ally community organisations, and together they have conducted and published research on; 1) participatory evaluations of specialty models of antenatal care for mothers of refugee and Indigenous Australian backgrounds; 2) mental health care experiences of people experiencing homelessness; 3) the development and impact of peer-led mental health support in the community; and 4) the implementation, scale-up, and impact of a co-produced and co-facilitated psycho-education programme.
Rebecca’s work is informed by implementation science, specifically the feasibility and efficacy of scaling evidence-based health interventions within mainstream health systems in both national and international contexts. Rebecca is currently Irish lead on two studies; 1) The global ‘Apart Together’ study, in collaboration with the World Health Organization, exploring the psycho-social impact of COVID-19 on migrants (www.aparttogetherstudy.org); 2) Evaluating the pilot implementation of Cairde’s Peer Mental Health Advocates for Ethnic Minority Communities. She is also part of the Irish team contributing to the PERFORM2Scale study, which aims to develop and evaluate a sustainable approach to scaling-up a district-level management strengthening intervention in different and changing contexts. https://www.perform2scale.org/