Dr Rich Moth

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