Gary Blake

Background

Gary is our Community Engagement & Participation Lead for the Yorkshire and Humber Patient Safety Research Collaboration Centre. In addition to this role, he works for West Yorkshire Health & Care Partnership co-ordinating a cross-sector project to develop and deliver Cultural Competency and Humility training to health care workers and volunteers. Previously he worked as a Training & Development Manager for Community Mental Health Transformation (CMHT) and prior to this spent 30 years working in the Voluntary & Community Sector. During this time, he has had senior manager roles that focused on volunteer management, community development, community cohesion and community learning & research.

Research interests

Gary has recently successfully completed a Health Equity Fellowship that focused on the development and delivery of Cultural Competency and Humility training for health care workers and volunteers. He has been involved in lots of different research themes including, the benefits and challenges of volunteering, ways of promoting community cohesion, experiences of young people not being in employment and training (NEET), living in working age poverty and ways of making volunteering more accessible to people from refugee and migrant backgrounds. More recently he co-ordinated a cross-sector regional research project that focused on the effects of the Covid 19 Pandemic on the Voluntary & Community Sector.