Dr Sarah-Jane Fenton is a Lecturer in Mental Health Policy at the Institute for Mental Health (IMH). Sarah-Jane co-leads the Masters in Mental Health at the University of Birmingham.

The IMH is an interdisciplinary research centre with a specific youth mental health focus that will deliver high quality internationally relevant research to inform and impact upon public policy and practice and improve the care and outcomes for people experiencing problems with their mental health.

Sarah-Jane completed her Doctoral Research in 2016, graduating with a dual award degree from the University of Birmingham (2016) and the University of Melbourne (2017). This research explored mental health policy and service delivery for adolescents and young people aged 16-25 years of age. It was a comparative study exploring policy and systems in the UK with those in Australia; and delivery of services to people experiencing mental ill health aged between 16-25 years old. Most recently Sarah-Jane has been working on an NIHR funded study evaluating the use of patient experience data to improve the quality of inpatient mental health care (EURIPIDES).

Awarded Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (HEA) (2017)
PhD, University of Birmingham (awarded December 2016) & University of Melbourne (awarded August 2017)
PGCert Advanced Research Methods and Skills, University of Birmingham (Excellent) (2015)
PGCert, Psychodynamic Approaches to Working with Adolescents, Tavistock & Portman Clinic (Distinction) (2011)
MPhil, Comparative Social Policy, University of Oxford (2007)
BSc (Hons), Geography, University of Exeter (1st) (2004)

Sarah-Jane has particular expertise in youth, adolescence, mental health, health policy, realist and qualitative research.