Middle Street Heritage Team
Verusca Calabria
Dr Verusca Calabria is the project lead and a Research Fellow in the department of Social Work, Care and Community, School of Social Sciences, Nottingham Trent University, UK.
Verusca is an interdisciplinary qualitative researcher and an experienced Oral History practitioner. She worked as a community-based Oral Historian for 10 years before joining Nottingham Trent University. Her PhD research focused on the experiences of mental health service users and professionals who gave and received care in the now closed mental hospitals in Nottinghamshire across a period of 50 years.
Dale Copley
Dr Dale Copley is the heritage project co-ordinator. Dale has worked nationally supporting heritage projects since 2008, and is a specialist in heritage engagement.
Dale loves Oral History and is privileged to support a number of participatory Oral History projects funded by the National Heritage Lottery Fund. On this project she has particularly enjoyed working with project volunteers to record and transcribe oral histories, and to capture and preserve the memories, stories and experiences of the wonderful Middle Street community.
Geraldine Brady
Geraldine Brady is Professor of Sociology and Social Work in the Department of Social Work, Care and Community at NTU. She has a long-standing interest in the lived experience of marginalisation and discrimination. Her research takes a critical sociological approach, publishing in the areas of children’s mental health, disability rights, child sexual abuse and exploitation and the criminalisation of men and women.
She uses participatory and creative methods and reflects on the politics of research, aiming to influence the development of socially just policy and practice. Geraldine is Co-Investigator on the project, her role is to support the delivery of the project.
Charlie Gregson
Charlie Gregson is a Senior Lecturer in Museum Studies at NTU. She is interested in how to develop impactful projects between communities, academia and the creative industries. Her practice focuses on human-centric methodologies including community co-production, oral histories and design thinking, as well as drawing on non-human perspectives for sustainable development.
Charlie is a Co-Investigator on this project. Her role is to mentor the student interns to support their self-reflection, skills development and career progression.
Megan Williams
Megan is an MA Museum and Heritage Development student at NTU, with previous experience with oral history through working on a project in collaboration with Nottingham Castle.
Through the project ’50 Years of Middle Steet Resource Centre: The Hidden Heritage of Wellbeing’, Megan has gained valuable knowledge and skills which she hopes to use throughout the progression of her career. She has recently developed a strong passion toward how the strength of oral history can support or even challenge existing narratives within the past and present day.
Alice Day
Alice is a 26 year old Postgraduate at Nottingham Trent University, with a background in Heritage building conservation and an Undergraduate BA in History and Politics. She was intrigued by the project, due to having worked on community research in previous projects. Alice’s involvement in this project has inspired her Dissertation project, in which she is using the archiving and oral history knowledge she gained to commit to further research. In her future career, she is aiming to work in Sports Heritage, and commit her experience of working within communities to further community Heritage.
“I feel incredibly honoured to not only have received such wonderful training, but to also have met some incredible people and to have had the opportunity to be a part of their stories”.
Madhavi H. Jayawardan
Madhavi is an MA Museum and Heritage Development student in Nottingham Trent University. She had been working as a Visiting Lecturer and a government schoolteacher in History and Political Science. She was awarded UNESCO SAARC scholarship to study a master’s in arts in International Relations and South Asian Studies future. Her keen interest on heritage development and museology brought her to undertake her second master’s degree in the United Kingdom.
She is interested in hidden history and heritage, memory, mental health, history, exhibition curation and related themes in this discipline which led her to be a part of this valuable project of the ‘Fifty Years of Middle Street Resource Centre: The Hidden Heritage of Wellbeing’. During this project she has actively participated in workshops and gained professional skills, knowledge and exposure, engaging with diverse communities throughout the project.
She would like to thank all for giving her this wonderful opportunity in her personal life as well as her career.
Zhuoran Wang
Zhuoran Wang is an MA in Museum and Heritage Development student at NTU. She has interned at the Communication Museum of the Communication University of China, the National Museum of China, and the National Art Museum with a focus on organising collections and communicating exhibition information.
Through participating in the project “ The Heritage of Middle Street Resource Centre”, she was exposed for the first time to the historical background and current debates in mental healthcare, which sparked a strong interest. She is committed to continuing deep learning, calling for and promoting the importance of paying attention to mental health. In addition, Zhuoran Wang also gained valuable internship experience and improved her social and communication skills, which has a positive impact on her future career choices and development.