Dr Michael Richards

Profile

Biography

Biography

Michael is a Community Psychologist and Chartered Psychologist, and Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society, with over 15 years of experience of working in local communities and across different academic disciplines in different higher education institutions. Michael is passionate about finding ways to work collaboratively with marginalised groups and promoting their voices using different methods including, art, poetry, film, photography, and drama, alongside conventional methods. Michael has worked collaboratively with social workers, social services, charities, housing associations, schools and interdisciplinary professionals in areas including health promotion, mental health, sexual health, and disabilities, to mostly create projects working with young people and adults with disabilities to challenge stigma and marginalisation.

Research Interests

Michael’s research interests are intersectional in nature, cutting across disciplines and research areas such as psychology, community psychology, health promotion, marginalised voices, mental health, posthumanism and critical/disability studies. Michael is primarily a qualitative researcher but is open to mixed methods and as a particular interest in participatory approaches to research.

Michael is currently a Deputy Director of the Research Centre for Arts and Wellbeing and an experienced researcher who has published books, journal articles, book chapters and other outputs. Michael has 2 PhD completions and currently supervises 4 PhD students and has supervised at least 20 MSc dissertations. Michael is Deputy of the newly formed Postgraduate Readjustment Panel at the Graduate School.

Teaching

Michael is a highly experienced teacher with student voice at the heart of his work, which is highlighted in his leading of over 23 modules during his time at Edge Hill, across a range of disciplines and programmes relating to health promotion, mental health, psychology, and research. Michael is an established year lead for the BSc Child and Adolescent Mental Health and Wellbeing programme and has been involved with programme development on other health programmes.

Michael has line manager and peer mentoring responsibilities, alongside being a past or present member of ethics and employability committees and VASP and the newly formed version as an ‘internal consultant’, where he advises new and established programmes.

Michael has been shortlisted on three occasions for the Student Led Awards at EHU.

External Engagement

Michael is the former Chair of the Community Psychology Section of the British Psychological Society and was Honorary Secretary from 2015 – 2022.

Michael is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Community, Work and Family and is an Occasional Editor on the Journal, Disability and Society, and has reviewed papers over the years for different journals relating to psychology and disabilities.

Michael has been an External Examiner at four higher education institutions for online and face-to-face programmes.