The Health and Justice Research Network (HJRN) undertakes researching health and social care needs linked to the criminal justice system
Dr Charlotte Lennox, Health and Justice Research Network, Division of Psychology and Mental Health, The University of Manchester
The Health and Justice Research Network (HJRN) focuses on conducting high-quality, impactful and applied research around the health and social care needs of people in contact with the criminal justice system.
Dr Charlotte Lennox
Charlotte is a Chartered Psychologist and Lecturer. With 20 years’ experience in research, Charlotte is highly experienced in mixed-methods research with expertise in developing and evaluating complex interventions and has a particular interest in the use of realist approaches.
Prior to working in research, Charlotte worked in children’s residential secure care, a passion she continued into her research, where she specialises in youth justice. Charlotte was instrumental in the development and implementation of the Comprehensive Health Assessment Tool (CHAT). The CHAT provides a standardised holistic screening and assessment for children (aged 10-18) throughout the secure estate, aiding early identification of needs, improving continuity of care and reducing duplication during transition periods.
Charlotte is also fully involved in the organisation and delivery of the MSc Forensic Psychology & Mental Health. This includes teaching, supervision, marking, module lead, and academic advisor. She is also the admissions tutor for the course.
Health and Justice Research Network (HJRN)
The Health and Justice Research Network (HJRN; formally The Offender Health Research Network) is a multi-disciplinary network of academics and clinicians, based at the University of Manchester.
Our portfolio of research focuses on:
- The health and social care needs of people in contact with the criminal justice system.
- Screening and identification of health needs and risks.
- Pathways of care in the criminal justice system.
- Implementing and evaluating novel health services and initiatives to improve the health of people in contact with the criminal justice system.
Our current projects concern the following areas:
- Access to health and social care in the criminal justice system.
- The nexus between the criminal justice and mental health systems.
- The children and young people secure estate.
- Avoidable harms.
- Violence risk and mental health assessments.
- Periods of transition e.g., through the prison gate.
We have expertise in mixed methodology research including:
- Advanced quantitative and qualitative research designs and analyses.
- Randomised controlled trials.
- Process evaluation and implementation, feasibility and fidelity assessments, with a particular focus on realist methodology.
- National cross-sectional prevalence studies using violence risk and mental health assessments.
- Longitudinal national cohort studies.
- Advance mixed methodology.
- Systematic and realist reviews.
The University of Manchester
The University of Manchester is a place where research has a global impact, where students experience outstanding teaching and learning, helping them to develop into tomorrow’s leaders, and where all activity is enriched by a commitment to social responsibility.
Manchester was the first and most eminent of England’s civic universities. Today, we’re part of the prestigious Russell Group of UK universities, with an international reputation for the highest level of research and teaching, as demonstrated by our position in the Academic Ranking of World Universities. In 2021 we were placed 35th in the world and fifth in the UK.
Manchester has a rich history of ground-breaking research, from the splitting of the atom by Ernest Rutherford in 1917 to the isolation of graphene’s properties by Andre Geim and Kostya Novoselov in 2004.
Our place as one of the UK’s top research universities was confirmed in the results of the 2014 Research Excellence Framework, the system for assessing the quality of research in UK higher education institutions. 83% of our research activity was judged to be ‘world-leading’ (4*) or ‘internationally excellent’ (3*), and we were ranked in
fifth place in terms of research power. Our pioneering reputation is recognised worldwide – we’re ranked 7th in the Reuters Top 100 Most Innovative Universities in Europe 2018.
The Division of Psychology and Mental Health
The Division of Psychology and Mental Health, sits within The Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health which has a total income of over £300 million, with around 8,000 undergraduate students and 3,000 postgraduate students. The Faculty is a leading centre for research and education in medicine and a spectrum of health-related professions including psychology.
The Division of Psychology and Mental Health research involves the investigation of the roles of cognition, interpersonal, family and social and biological environments in mental and physical health conditions, the development of psychological and biological models and theories, and the testing of these models in interventions, often clinical trials.
We have strengths and interest in research into severe mental health problems, child, adolescent, maternal and older adults mental and physical health, anxiety problems, suicide and homicide, forensic mental health, health psychology across a range of health conditions and medically unexplained symptoms. Within these themes we have collaborations across the world and are committed to global approaches to mental and physical health.
