Dr Julia Blazdell is a Lived Experience Consultant and Trainer. Julia has been involved with the development and delivery of the Knowledge and Understanding Framework training for many years. She was formerly a manager at Emergence and, before that, a project coordinator with the Mental Health Foundation. She has extensive experience in a range of coproduction projects, including research, training, consultancy and service design. Julia is passionate about developing and extending the role of coproduction and sees the co-presidency of BIGSPD as an important opportunity to foreground the voices of people with lived experience in order to develop interventions that can better respond to people’s needs, whilst broadening current debates around the constructs of ‘personality disorder’ and ‘complex emotional needs’.

Julia held the position of BIGSPD Co-President from 2018 to 2024.