About
Jacqueline Parkes is the Professor of Applied Mental Health in the Faculty of Health, Education & Society at the University of Northampton (UON).
Jackie is an experienced mental health nurse, and has worked in a broad range of mental health and learning disability settings prior to moving into Higher Education. She is the Founder and co-Lead of the Northamptonshire Dementia Research & Innovation Centre (NDRIC) at UON. Her subject specialisms are dementia, mental health, public and patient involvement and engagement (PPI&E) and nursing research, with a particular focus on developing and implementing person-centred care pathways. She works extensively with local organisations to evaluate their provision of health and social care services, including community-based interventions for people living with dementia. She is the Chair of the Northamptonshire Dementia Action Forum (Formerly the Northamptonshire Dementia Action Alliance) and Chair of the Leicester, Leicestershire & Rutland Dementia Friendly Community Forum.
Jackie has also established four community-based social groups for people with dementia; the Forget-me-nots Social YOD Group, Qualified by Experience (QBE) for former carers, and the Post-diagnostic Support UnityDEM Centre in Northamptonshire; and the Lutterworth Share & Care Group for people with dementia and their carers in South Leicestershire. She has a particular interest in young onset dementia, and has been a lead on the UK Alzheimer’s Society funded Angela Project (2016-19) looking at diagnostic accuracy and post-diagnostic support for young people with dementia; and Principal Investigator on the Innovate UK funded project investigating the use of an online cognitive training platform for people experiencing the early stages of cognitive decline. Jackie has also set up her own not-for-profit Comampany called the Academy for Dementia Research and Education Ltd to deliver evidence-based early interventions to people experiencing the early stages cognitive decline and dementia. Jackie also has extensive experiencing in designing and leading Public and Patient Involvement and Engagment Projects, particularly with people with dementia. She designed and co-leads the Wellcome-Funded Dementia Experts for Involvement Network-Young Dementia (DEfIN-YD); and is the Strategic Area Lead for Working with and Learning from People with Dementia on the Higher Education Dementia Network (HEDN) in the UK. Finally, Jackie is currently the Deputy Chair of Research at Young Dementia Network. She is also a member of the pan European Group InterDEM.
Declarations of Interest:
Innovate UK Knowledge Transfer Partnership/MyCognition Ltd. “The KTP will develop, test and launch an innovative dgital tool to support cognitive decline in ageing populations” (August 2019) (£120,000).
Welcome Trust. “DEFIN-YD: Young onset dementia public engagement project”. (September 2019) (£64,614.00)
ISCF Healthy Ageing Trailblazing Stage 1 “Waterside Meadow Project” [March 2020] (£30,000)
Royal College of Occupational Therapists. “Evaluating supported walk for health initiative within a community-based dementia group to facilitate social participation” (June 2019) (£4912.52).
UKRI/Innovate UK Healthy Ageing Trailblazers Stage 2 “Waterside Meadow” (May 2021) (£1.7m)