Deborah Murphy

Deborah Murphy is the Lead Occupational Therapist and manager of the Wellbeing Centre, an OT led prison wing/ day service at HMP Pentonville. Deborah has worked as an Occupational Therapist within mental health services for approx twenty-five years, largely specialising in working with offenders with mental health issues. Her team won the royal GP’s award for the best clinical team in secure services last year for their design of a day service model which has been replicated in a number of prisons across the UK. She is employed by Barnet, Enfield and Haringey NHS Mental Health Trust, working in partnership with Care UK.

Deborah trained as an Occupational Therapist at the University of Exeter and has undertaken postgraduate training in ‘Psychosocial Perspectives of Personality Disorder’ at the University of East London, and in ‘leadership and management’ at Middlesex University. She is currently studying for an advanced masters in Occupational Therapy with the aim of contributing to the field of research for Occupational Therapy in prisons. She regularly lectures on Occupational Therapy in prison at a number universities In the UK, as well as the US. She is the AHP lead on the advisory board for the quality network of mental health in prisons at the college of Psychiatry. She has a particular use for mindfulness in mental health and has been working closely with Oxford university for the past 4 years, developing mindfulness in prisons.