Therapeutic Communities is delighted to welcome a new Editor-in-Chief: Jenelle Clarke from University of Kent, UK. Dr Clarke has extensive experience in the field of Therapeutic Communities and will work to ensure that the journal continues to publish high-quality, innovative research in this area.

Dr Jenelle Clarke, University of Kent, UK
[email protected]

Dr Jenelle Clarke is a lecturer in sociology of health and social care at the University of Kent. Her research involves the exploration of everyday experiences of delivering and receiving health and mental health care, therapeutic community research and applying sociological theory to health and mental healthcare initiatives.

Having been part of Christ Church Deal therapeutic community for several years, Jenelle did her master’s research on women’s narratives of therapeutic change, completing with distinction in 2011. She then did her PhD research at the University of Nottingham with Professor Nick Manning and Dr Gary Winship, completing in 2015. Her PhD was a narrative ethnography that focused on two TCs for individuals with a diagnosis of personality disorder. Jenelle spent six months with each community (12 months in total) doing participant observations and narrative interviewing with staff and client members. She focused specifically on times outside of therapy, such as mealtimes and smoking breaks, to show how everyday interactions provide opportunities for therapeutic change. Her research identified key interaction rituals that generate a sense of trust and belonging within communities.

Since doing a PhD, Jenelle has done research and teaching at the University of Nottingham and the University of Birmingham, and most recently at the University of Kent. She has written and co-authored several publications and book chapters based upon her TC research and research on healthcare improvement initiatives. She was also a member, and then the chair, of the TCTC Research and Development Group and facilitated several research seminars. Jenelle has been an Associate Editor for the Mental Health Review Journal for eight years, having gained extensive experience journal editorial responsibilities, including working with ScholarOne.

Jenelle is leading a project on integrated mental health and social care funded by The Healthcare Improvement Studies (THIS) Institute (Sept 2020 – Dec 2025). Using the microsociological theory of interaction ritual chains, the project looks at what happens when different agencies, such as mental health and social care, join up to coordinate care around patient needs. Focusing on children and adolescent and older people services, it asks what it is like to deliver and receive joined up care, and explores how different groups of people come to trust each other and work collaboratively. The project aims to produce learning in order to improve integrated care services.

  
Jenelle is excited to join Therapeutic Communities as Editor-in-Chief and is looking forward to working with the TCTC Board.  

 

Submissions

Submissions are made using ScholarOne Manuscripts. Registration and access are available by clicking the button below.

Submit your paper here!

Author guidelines must be strictly followed.

Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication anywhere else, while under review for this journal.

If you would like to propose a topic for a future special issue of the Journal, please get in contact with the Editor-in-Chief, Dr Jenelle Clarke: [email protected]