Reimagining Community-Based Mental Health Care

Reimagining Community-Based Mental Health Care is a new research theme within CIRCLE (the Centre for International Research on Care, Labour and Equalities), a Faculty of Social Sciences social research institute at the University of Sheffield. At its core, this research theme is concerned with how community-based mental health care is imagined, organised, and experienced across different social, institutional, and cultural contexts. The research theme takes as a starting point the recognition that mental health care is shaped by complex intersections between health and social care, data and governance, professional practice, and social inequalities - areas that align closely with CIRCLE’s wider intellectual agenda. Rather than treating community mental health care as a fixed model, the theme invites critical reflection on how it is continuously reconfigured through policy reforms, workforce changes, technological developments, and the everyday practices of care.

How the Theme Emerged

The theme emerges from an exploratory project on mental health funded by the CIRCLE’s Strategic Funding Awards. This project sought to enhance collaboration between academic researchers and non-academic stakeholders, including professionals, third sector organisations, and people with lived experience of mental distress. Building on the momentum and relationships generated through this initial project, the theme aims to create a sustained, collaborative space for critical, inclusive, and practice-relevant mental health research.

Key Areas of Inquiry

Several interconnected areas of inquiry were identified during the initial CIRCLE funded project and will form key strands of the theme, including:

• The growing complexity of data use in mental health, particularly how data is produced, governed, interpreted, and mobilised in ways that affect care, accountability, and inclusion. A project is already ongoing on this strand as part of one of the IMPACT networks on Using Data to Improve Services. 
• Ongoing processes of deinstitutionalisation and the shifting boundaries between institutional, community, and informal forms of mental health support. This includes examining the pressures placed on community services and the implications for service users, families, and practitioners. These ideas align with the House of Commons committee report published in December 2025 on Community Mental Health Services and the Neighbourhood Mental Health Centre pilot projects started across England.
• The mental health workforce, exploring questions of labour, professional roles, skills, precarity, and emotional work within community-based mental health services, alongside the experiences of volunteers, peer workers, and unpaid carers. Closely linked to this is a strong commitment to diversity, inclusion, and the “All Means All” principle, foregrounding the need to address structural inequalities related to race, ethnicity, gender, disability, migration status, class, and other axes of difference that shape access to, and experiences of, mental health care.

Our Approach: Collaboration and Co-Production

Collaboration is a defining principle of the Reimagining Community-Based Mental Health Care theme. The theme is grounded in the belief that meaningful mental health research must be co-produced with those who are most affected by it. In line with these principles, a key outcome of the initial project was the development of a set of core principles to support collaborative mental health research.

To operationalise this collaborative approach, one of the main activities proposed was the establishment of a regular Mental Health Forum. The Forum will meet periodically and feature two short project presentations at each meeting: one from an academic perspective and one from professionals, third sector organisations, or individuals with lived experience. The primary aim of the Forum is not dissemination, but connection - creating a space for networking, identifying shared concerns, surfacing emerging issues, and enabling calls for partnership that can lead to new collaborative projects.

Launch Event

The formal launch of the Reimagining Community-Based Mental Health Care theme will take place in May (date to be confirmed). 

Get Involved

We welcome interest from:

• Academic researchers
• Practitioners and service leaders
• Third sector organisations
• Policy stakeholders
• People with lived experience

If you would like to join the Mental Health Forum, attend the launch, or explore collaboration, please contact:

Dr Maria Teresa Ferazzoli
Lead, Mental Health Research Theme
m.t.ferazzoli@sheffield.ac.uk