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staff list  BackProf Jan Burns

  • Job title: Joint Clinical Psychology Programme Director
  • Dept: Applied Psychology
  • Tel:
  • Campus: Salomons
Prof Jan Burns

Jan Burns is currently Head of Department and Joint Programme Director of the Doctorate in Clinical Psychology, based in the Department of Applied Psychology.

Having completed her PhD at the University of Wales, Jan trained as a clinical psychologist, specialising in working with people with intellectual disabilities, gender issues and forensic services in the NHS. Her academic career has taken her into the field of professional training in applied psychology and she has continued and developed her research interests. These include identity and disability, exercise and sport for people with intellectual disabilities, health, gender, sexuality and identity.

Prof Burns is also part of the Centre for Sport, Physical Education and Activity Research (SPEAR)||

Research and Knowledge Exchange activities:

Jan is Head of Eligibility for the International Sports Federation for Persons with Intellectual Disability (INAS-FID)||. This position overseas the eligibility processes for those athletes with intellectual disabilities who wish to compete at an elite level. Currently Jan and Nick Parr, from the INAS Secretariat, are involved in rolling out a series of workshops around the globe to help the member nations develop their eligibility processes and ultimately be able to get more athletes with intellectual disabilities involved in sport at this elite level. The first of these workshops was held in Singapore in June and was attended from delegates from as far away as Australia, Korea, China and Japan. Jan also recently went to South Africa in her role as Head of Eligibility to attend the INAS world Football Championships in Limpopo.

Jan is also involved in an international research group jointly funded by INAS and the International Paralympic Committee||  developing the sports specific classification system for athletes with learning disabilities to be able to compete in the London Paralympic games in 2012. She recently spent some time in Eindhoven at the World IPC swimming championships with other members of the team, collecting data to refine the prototype of the classification system.

Sport offers many opportunities to people with learning disabilities not just at an elite level and the Special Olympics|| is an international organisation with groups all over the world which organises sporting opportunities for all people with learning disabilities no matter what their impairment or level of ability. Jan is currently working on a project with one of the Doctorate in Clinical Psychology trainees, Clare Watts, investigating the impact of involvement in sport on psychological factors such as self-esteem and social networks.

The project 'Psychological Benefits of Special Olympic involvement' Prof Jan Burns & Clare Watts, has recently been awarded $4,000 from Special Olympics Inc. Healthy Athletes.

Jan was a founding member of the Psychology of Women section of the British Psychological Society|| and has continued to write and research in this area.

During early 2009 Prof Burns was a visiting scholar at the Centre for Feminist Research at the University of York in Toronto where she gave a number of talks and seminars and also participated as an interviewee in the Psychology's Feminist Voices|| history project directed by Prof. Alex Rutherford.

Teaching and Subject expertise:

Prof Burns has also made many contributions to the professional development of Clinical Psychology through her involvement with the BPS and was co-chair of the Models of Training Sub Group of the New Ways of Working for Clinical Psychologists project||. She is also a past chair of the Group of Trainers in Clinical Psychology (GTiCP) - click here to view||.

Attracting people from a wide range of backgrounds into Clinical Psychology in the UK is a challenge and Prof Burns has been keen to try and address this through a number of projects, including the development of a recruitment video, aimed at less well represented groups in the profession – Making a Difference in Clinical Psychology.

http://www.bps.org.uk/dcp/difference/difference_home.cfm||

External activity:

Cherguit, J., Burns, J., Pettle, S. & Tasker, F. (2010). Non-biological lesbian mothers' experiences of maternity health care. Psychology of Women Annual Conference, Windsor.

"New Ways of Working for Applied Psychologists in Health and Social Care: Models of Training." NIMHE/CSIP/BPS/DH, 2007 (with M. Wang) - click here to view||.

Publications and research outputs:

  • Goodbody, L. & Burns, J. (2011). A disquisition on pluralism in qualitative methods: the troublesome case of a critical narrative analysis, Qualitative Research in Psychology, In Press.
  • Goodbody, L. & Burns, J. (2011). Deconstructing Personal -Professional Development in UK Clinical Psychology: Disciplining the interdisciplinarity of lived experience. Journal of the Interdisciplinary Social Sciences, 5, In press.
  • Burns, J. & Davies, D. (2011).  Same-Sex Relationships and Women with Intellectual Disabilities. Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities.  In press.
  • Burns, J. (2011). Issue: Clinical Psychology getting lost? Accident, strategy or symptom? Invited Commentary. Clinical Psychology Forum. In press.
  • Burns, J. (2010). Creative Approaches to Training Budding Psychologists: A Commentary. Psychology, Learning and Teaching, 9, (2), p48-49.
  • Wallis, J., Burns, J. & Capdevila, R. (2010).  What is narrative therapy and what is it not? The usefulness of Q methodology to explore accounts of White & Epston's (1990) approach to narrative therapy. Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy  doi: 10.1002/cpp.723 (published on line)
  • Lippold, T. & Burns, J. (2009).  Social Support and Intellectual Disabilities: A comparison of social networks of adults with intellectual disability and those with physical disability. Journal of Intellectual Disability Research, 53 (5) 463-473.
  • Wallis, J., Burns, J. & CapDevila, R. (2009). Narrative therapy: definition and practice in the UK: A Q-methodological study. Qualitative Research, 5 (2), 1-18.
  • McNicholl, D., Burns, J. & Young, A. (2008). The impact of neuropsychological assessments on the care programmes of people who use adult mental health services. Clinical Psychology Forum. 187, 38-41.
  • Baum, S., Burns, J., Foyle, J., Joyce, T., Sklavounos, D. & Turk, V. (2008). Clinical Psychology: Workforce Development Group (London). Clinical Psychology and People with Learning Disabilities, 6 (1), 41-51.

  • Zitz, C. & Burns, J., Tacconelli, E. (2012) Trans Men and Friendships: A Foucauldian Discourse Analysis, Feminism and Psychology

  • Cherguit,J., Burns, J. & Pettle, S. (2012) Non-Biological Lesbian mothers' experiences of maternity health care services, Journal of Advanced Nursing

  • Burns, J., (2011) Falling Through the Rabbit Hole: Elite sports and people with intellectual disabilities, Journal of Critical Psychology Counselling and Psychotherapy