Emma Watson

Emma started working as a peer support worker in 2010, and since then has worked in a whole spectrum of peer and lived experience roles. She was the Peer Support Lead at Nottinghamshire NHS Foundation Trust for 7 years, and during this time she completed her PhD exploring how the systemic context of the NHS shapes and constrains peer support, and how individual peer workers manage and resist this. Within this, she explored how peer workers relate to the 'peer' identity, and the various stories that are told within systems about what it means to be in a lived experience role. Emma is now programme lead at Imroc for Research, Evaluation, Publications and Development. In this role she champions lived experience led research, and the equitable, accessible sharing of knowledge between different communities.