Dr Rich Moth
Senior Lecturer in Social Work
My profile
Biography
I have a BA in Politics and South Asian Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS, University of London), MA in Social Work from Goldsmiths College, University of London, MA in Social Research Methods and PhD from the University of Birmingham.
I have 15 years’ practice experience in the social care field in both statutory and voluntary sector settings. I have worked in learning disability, homelessness and mental health services, including as a social worker in a mental health Crisis Resolution Team.
I completed my doctoral thesis in 2014. This study explores the impact of marketisation and managerialism on conceptualisations of mental distress in community mental health services. This was funded by an award from the Centre of Excellence in Interdisciplinary Mental Health (University of Birmingham) and an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) studentship.
I have been a researcher on two externally funded research projects. Between 2016 and 2019 I was part of a research team studying the impact of austerity and welfare state transformation on access to mental health services and the benefits system in England. This was funded by the EU Horizon 2020 Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (H2020). Between 2017 and 2020 I was also a co-applicant, and took a leading role in the day-to-day management of a comparative study of the impact of neoliberal policy reform on social work practice in Switzerland and England which was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation.
I am currently coordinating a follow-up to the H2020 study. The title of the project (and an open access monograph to be published by Policy Press in 2025) is Mental Health, Violent Insecurity and the Welfare State: Maddening Cuts and Benefits Distress. This empirical study explores the harms experienced by mental health service users arising from the increased prominence of an active labour market (workfare) policy agenda in the social security and mental health systems.
My publications include a sole-authored monograph Understanding Mental Distress: Knowledge, practice and neoliberal reform in community mental health services (Policy Press, 2022) and I am co-editor of an edited volume Resist the Punitive State: Grassroots Struggles Across Welfare, Housing, Education and Prisons (Pluto Press, 2020).
Interests and expertise
My area of expertise are broadly in the areas of mental health and social work, models of mental distress, mental health and welfare policy, social movements, radical and critical social work, and climate change and mental health.
I would be very happy to consider postgraduate supervision in these areas.
Research outputs
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Chapters in books
Moth, R. (2023) 'Institutionalisation and oppression within the mental health system in England: Social work complicity and resistance.' Social Work’s Histories of Complicity and Resistance: A Tale of Two Professions. pp. 165-182.
Greener, J., Hart, E.L., Moth, R. (2019) 'Resisting the Punitive State–Corporate Nexus:.' Resist the Punitive State. Pluto Press, pp. 3-27.
McKenna, D., Peters, P., Moth, R. (2019) 'Resisting the Work Cure.' The Routledge Handbook of Disability Activism. Routledge, pp. 128-143.
Moth, R., Lavalette, M. (2019) 'Social policy and welfare movements ‘from below’:.' Social Work and the Making of Social Policy. Policy Press, pp. 121-136.
Moth, R. (2013) '‘Diagnosis human’: Markets, targets and medicalisation in community mental health services.' Critical and Radical Debates in Social Work. pp. 305-309.
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Journal articles
Greener, J., Moth, R. (2022) 'From shame to blame: institutionalising oppression through the moralisation of mental distress in austerity England.' Social Theory and Health, 20(2) pp. 152-170.
Moth, R. (2022) 'Understanding Mental Distress.'
Hanley, J., De Luca-Ruane, A., Moth, R. (2021) 'Why we are worried about the 'Independent' Review of Children's Social Care in England-and why we think you should be too.' Critical and Radical Social Work, 9(2) pp. 301-306.
Moth, R. (2020) '‘The business end’: Neoliberal policy reforms and biomedical residualism in frontline community mental health practice in England.' Competition and Change, 24(2) pp. 133-153.
(2019) 'Resist the Punitive State.'
Moth, R., McKeown, M. (2016) 'Realising Sedgwick’s vision: theorising strategies of resistance to neoliberal mental health and welfare policy.' Critical and Radical Social Work, 4(3) pp. 375-390.
Spandler, H., Moth, R., McKeown, M., Greener, J. (2016) 'Editorial.' Critical and Radical Social Work, 4(3) pp. 307-312.
House, R., Moth, R., Porteous, D., Jamieson, G. (2016) '‘Closing the Gap’ TUC conference, Salford, 29 April 2016: Mental health beyond austerity: a ‘mental wealth’ approach to post-austerity policy-making.' Self & Society, 44(4) pp. 447-459.
Moth, R., Greener, J., Stoll, T. (2015) 'Crisis and resistance in mental health services in England.' Critical and Radical Social Work, 3(1) pp. 89-102.