Lived Experienced Research Ambassador

What is our role?

Our goal is for everyone who uses the Trust’s services to get the chance to take part in research. It is well known that service users benefit enormously from research, and we are lucky to be building on solid foundations at the Trust since it is the top mental health Trust in England for the number service users involved in research! However, there is still patchy participation in research across the Trust and we are committed to improving access and understanding the barriers to underrepresented groups.

Saskia Evans Perks, Lived Experience Research Ambassador Saskia.perks@slam.nhs.uk 

Some of the reasons to contact us

If you have lived experience – you are our community! I want to speak with as many of you as possible to raise awareness of research opportunities and to understand the barriers that might stop you participating in research.

If you are a clinician – you are often the conduit for offering research to service users, so please reach out if you’d like to discuss the benefits of offering research to service users or to help me understand what would help you make this offer routinely.

If you are a clinical researcher – you provide the service that we are promoting. I want to work with you to help you reach and meet the needs of diverse service users across the Trust. Please get in touch if you want to know more about the service user networks that exist across the Trust and its community.

If you are a Research Champion – you are our partners in promoting the benefits and importance of research with clinicians. I want to support the growth of the research champion network and represent the service user voice as a motivator for your work. Let me know how I can help!

Research club

The Research Club is a collaboration between the SLaM recovery college and Lived Experience Research Ambassadors. It was developed to ensure that research at the Trust and the IoPPN, King's College London is discussed with service users, staff, and all at Trust. We aim to ensure that our research is accessible to our service users.

The sessions involve researchers talking about their findings and how the research has shed light on how improve their current work and treatments as clinicians. A participant of the study often attends and explains what it was like to take part in the research study.

Email saskia.perks@slam.nhs.uk for more information.

Enrol via the Recovery College website: https://www.slamrecoverycollege.co.uk/enrol.html

The online meeting is held monthly. The upcoming dates for 2026 are:

Title: Buddhist Ayurvedic Studies in Mental Health Nursing Research

Date:  Thursday 29 January, 2-3pm, Online

Session:

Whilst the historical interconnections between Buddhism and Ayurveda can be traced over more than two millennia, Buddhist Ayurvedic Studies is a new sub-field of Buddhist Studies in Sri Lanka.

Buddhist Ayurvedic interventions offer a holistic approach addressing four dimensions of well-being – physical, mental, social, and spiritual. This is achieved through promotion of personally tailored health maintenance routines, including healthy diet, exercise, self-care and ethical living (sīla), meditative practices for concentration and tranquillity (samatha-samādhi) and the development of insight and wisdom (vipassana-paññā).

The presenter will share their journey from lived experience of psychosis as a teenage college student, to a PhD Buddhist Ayurvedic intervention development study at King’s College London (KCL). This study at KCL is aimed at promoting well-being among UK and Sri Lankan student populations, and involves international collaboration between Buddhist Ayurvedic specialists in Sri Lanka and mental health researchers in the UK. The research project and its development will be outlined.

Read the study: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.20.25338430v1 

Speakers: Matthew Aldridge (Practitioner Trainer/SLaM Recovery College

Matthew Aldridge is a UK Registered Mental Health Nurse (RMN) in the NHS. He holds a BSc in Psychosocial Interventions, an MA in Buddhist Studies, and has practiced Serene Reflection Meditation (Sōtō Zen) for 25 years. He holds qualifications in Ayurvedic Therapies and as an Ayurvedic Diet & Lifestyle Consultant, and a diploma and MA in Buddhist Ayurvedic Counselling from the Nāgānanda International Institute for Buddhist Studies and the University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka. Mentored by the late Emeritus Professor Galmangoda (1951–2024), he has delivered Buddhist Ayurvedic programmes to over 3,000 participants in the UK. He has articles in the Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing and Journal of Reflective Practice, a chapter in Pasatthavibhāvini (University of Kelaniya), and an article under review for PLOS Global Public Health. He is a Nursing Research PhD student at King’s College London with interdisciplinary supervision, including from the University of Kelaniya.

Service User Research Advisory Group

Service User Research Advisory Group (SURAG) aims to better understand the needs of the people who take part in research. It is an open space for service users to talk about their experiences of being research participants. It ensures that services users, as experts by experience, can advise on the research, engagement and dissemination activities. Attendees are encouraged to reflect on personal experience to ensure their voices are heard and can shape the design and implementation of the research locally.

 The meeting is held monthly on MS Teams 2pm - 3pm and is open to all Trust service users and staff with lived experience of menta health difficulties. To join, email: saskia.perks@slam.nhs.uk

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