Adam Benkwitz

Biography

Dr Adam Benkwitz is a Reader in the Sociology of Sport and Health; a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA); and a Fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health (FRSPH). He was formerly Head of Subject for Health and Social Care and Sport at Newman. In 2019 Adam won a national ‘Advance HE Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence (CATE)’, along with colleagues and students for their work on mentoring and learning analytics. He currently works on a range of research projects with partners including Rethink Mental Illness, Sport England, Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Foundation Trust (BSMHFT, where he is Chair of the Recovery Committee), Sussex Partnership Foundation Trust, Aston Villa Football Club Foundation, Birmingham MIND, Birmingham and Solihull Recovery College, Sport Birmingham, West Midlands Combined Authority, Birmingham County FA, as well as colleagues at numerous other HEIs. He co-leads the ‘Mental Health through Sport’ partnership with Sport Birmingham, WMCA and BSMHFT. He acts as an External Examiner at Edge Hill University, acts as a reviewer of grants for the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), and Advance HE, as well as being a member of Birmingham City Council’s ‘Mentally Healthy City’ Forum. Adam teaches across a number of undergraduate and postgraduate modules, as well as contributing to the University’s doctoral training programme. He currently supervises three PhD students, and he has been involved in numerous staff/student projects relating to student engagement, mentoring and enhancing the student experience via learner analytics.​

Other Activities

Membership of Professional Organisations

  • Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA).
  • Fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health (FRSPH)
  • Member of the BIRCH Network (Community Research for Health in Birmingham and Solihull) and Academic Advisor as part of the Birmingham City Council Community Research Hub.
  • Member of, and former Honorary Researcher with, the Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Foundation Trust (BSMHFT).
  • Member of the Recovery Research Network (RRN).

PhD supervisor for the following:

  • Irfan Khawaja (2016-2020) – ‘Exploring Children’s Physical Activity Behaviours according to Location.’;
  • Imran Ali (2016-) – ‘A study of the development of the BSMHFT Recovery College’;
  • Laura Scoles (2020-2023) – ‘Evaluating the Moving Lives, Healthy Minds project funded by Comic Relief’s Ahead of the Game fund’.

Academic Publications

Scoles, L.H., Myers, T.D., Benkwitz, A., and Holland, M. J. G. (2023). Exploring Mental Health Professionals’ Perceptions of Physical Activity Provision for Mental Health Service Users. Journal of Psychosocial Rehabilitation and Mental Health. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40737-023-00375-y

Healy, L.C., Benkwitz, A., McVinnie, Z., Sarkar, M., Islin, M., Brinded, A., Dodge, B., Opacic, S., Swithenbank, Z., Ranasinghe, S., Oliver, J., Karanika-Murray, M., and Nevill, M.E. (2023) Embedding Physical Activity into Community-Based Peer Support Groups for those Severely Affected by Mental Illness. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 20, 2291. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20032291

Attwood, C., Benkwitz, A., and Holland, M. (2022) “We are the forgotten grievers”: Bereaved family members’ experiences of support and mental ill-health following a road traffic collision. Death Studies, pp.1-8: https://doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2022.2160032

Ali, I., Benkwitz, A., and McDonald, P. (2022) Setting up a Recovery College: Exploring the Experiences of Mental Health Service-users, Staff, Carers and Volunteers. Journal of Psychosocial Rehabilitation and Mental Health, https://doi.org/10.1007/s40737-022-00295-3.

Benkwitz, A. (2022) The Case to Encourage Social Recovery in the Community through Sport and Physical Activity. The World Association for Psychosocial Rehabilitation Bulletin, Vol. 49, pp. 19-24 http://www.wapr.org/released-wapr-bulletin-psychosocial-rehabilitation-and-recovery-worldwide-49/.

Ali, I., Benkwitz, A., McDonald, P., Allen, K., and Glover, A. (2022) Reflections on Co-production, Lived Experience and the Shared Learning Environment within the Development and Early Delivery of a Recovery College. Journal of Recovery in Mental Health, 5(2) https://doi.org/10.33137/jrmh.v5i2.37890.

Healy, L., Benkwitz, A., McVinnie, Z., Sarkar, M., Nevill, M., and Islin, M. (2022) Final Evaluation Report: Impact of Embedding Physical Activity into Peer Support Groups. Rethink Mental Illness and Sport England, https://indd.adobe.com/view/c914ed0f-0c5b-4ca3-8d3d-15fb2efd3500.

Khawaja, I., Woodfield, L., Collins, P., Benkwitz, A., and Nevill, A. (2020) Tracking Children’s Physical Activity Patterns across the School Year: A Mixed-Methods Longitudinal Case Study. Children,7, (10), 78, https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9067/7/10/178

Parkes, S., Benkwitz, A., Bardy, H., Myler, K., and Peters, J. (2020) Being more human: Rooting learning analytics through resistance and reconnection with the values of Higher Education. Higher Education Research and Development Journal, 39(1), pp.113-126 https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2019.1677569

Khawaja, I., Woodfield, L., Collins, P., Benkwitz, A., and Nevill, A. (2019) Exploring Children’s Physical Activity Behaviours According to Location: A Mixed-Methods Case Study. Sports, 7, 240. https://doi.org/10.3390/sports7110240

Benkwitz, A., Morris, M., and Healy, L. (2019) An Ethnographic Study Exploring Football Sessions for Medium-Secure Mental Health Service-Users: Utilising the CHIME Conceptual Framework as an Evaluative Tool. Journal of Psychosocial Rehabilitation and Mental Health. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40737-019-00135-x

Benkwitz, A., and Healy, L. (2019) ‘Think Football’: Exploring a Football for Mental Health Initiative Delivered in the Community through the Lens of Personal and Social Recovery. Mental Health and Physical Activity. 17(1), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mhpa.2019.100292

Benkwitz, A., Parkes, S., Bardy, H., Myler, K., Peters, J., Akhtar, A., Keeling, P., Preece, R., & Smith, T. (2019) Using student data: Student-staff collaborative development of compassionate pedagogic interventions based on learning analytics

and mentoring. Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport, and Tourism Education. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhlste.2019.100202

Benkwitz, A. (2016) The Perils of Ethnography: Studying Football Fan Rivalry in Birmingham. In: Purdy, L., and Molnar, G. Ethnographies in Sport and Exercise Research. London, Routledge, pp. 141-154.

Benkwitz, A., and Molnar, G. (2016) The Emergence and Development of Association Football: Influential Sociocultural Factors in Victorian Birmingham. Soccer and Society. DOI:10.1080/14660970.2015.1133409.

Miller, P., and Benkwitz, A. (2016) Where the Action is: Towards a Discursive Psychology of “Authentic” Identity in Soccer Fandom. Psychology of Sport and Exercise. 23(1), 40-50.

Benkwitz, A. (2016) Brief Encounters with Qualitative Methods in Health Research: Ethnography. Cumbria Partnership Journal of Research, Practice and Learning, 5(1), 3-7. Accessed from: https://www.cumbriapartnership.nhs.uk/health-professionals/the-journal/volume-5-issue-1-summer-2016

Benkwitz, A. (2015) A Social History of Tennis in Britain [Review]. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 32(9), 1220-1221, DOI:10.1080/09523367.2015.1040611.

Benkwitz, A., and Molnar, G. (2012) Interpreting and Exploring Football Fan Rivalries: An Overview. Soccer and Society, 13(4), 479-494.

 

Grants & Funding Awarded:

£239,281 – BCC Public Health Tender – Community Research Hub. January 2024 – December 2026, in partnership with lead collaborators at BVSC and University of Birmingham.

£15,000 – Rethink Mental Illness – Research Evaluation of Physical Activity Navigator Project. January 2022 – May 2023, in partnership with lead collaborators at Nottingham Trent University.

£424,457 – Comic Relief ‘Ahead of the Game’ fund, “Moving lives, healthy minds” project. January 2020 – May 2023. In partnership with collaborators Sport Birmingham and Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Foundation Trust.

£10,000 – MIND Sport and Physical Activity Regional Network Hub – West Midlands. November 2019 – December 2021. In partnership with lead collaborator Sport Birmingham.

£30,000 – Rethink Mental Illness & Sport England: Movement For All Tender. September 2018-December 2021, in partnership with colleagues at Nottingham Trent University.

£34,579 – Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Foundation Trust (BSMHFT) – Research Evaluation of the BSMHFT Recovery College, November 2015-September 2019.

£48,027 – Collaborative development of pedagogic interventions based on learning analytics, HEFCE Catalyst Fund: Innovations in learning and teaching, and addressing barriers to student success, December 2016-March 2018.

£2,500 – Academic Development Fund (School of Human Sciences), Evaluation of Football for Mental Health Service, in partnership with Aston Villa Football Club Foundation, November 2016-June 2017.

£852 – Vice-Chancellor’s Excellence Award / HEA Funded Student / Staff Partnership – Student mentoring Project, January 2015-June 2016.

£845 – Academic Practice Unit – Student / Staff Partnership – Student Peer Mentoring Project, December 2016-June 2017.

£1,154 – HEFCE Funded Learning Analytics Project (Using Student Engagement Data) – Phase One, February 2017-June 2017.

£2,305 – Academic Development Project Fund (Faculty of Arts, Society and Professional Studies), Student Mentoring in a Mental Health and Football Project, in partnership with Aston Villa Football Club Foundation, October 2017-June 2018.

 

Conference Presentations:

Benkwitz, A. (2023) Setting up a Recovery College: Experiences of Service-Users, Staff, Carers and Volunteers. European Conference for Mental Health (ECMH), Ljubljana, Slovenia, 12th-15th September 2023.

Benkwitz, A. (2023) Encouraging Social Recovery from Mental Illness through Physical Activity in the Community. Refocus on Recovery Conference International Conference, University of Nottingham, 6th-7th September 2023.

Benkwitz, A., & Hipkiss, R. (2019) Working in Partnership to Enhance Mental Health through Sport: Using the CHIME Framework. Allied Health Professionals Conference at BSMHFT, 15th March 2019.

Parkes, S., Benkwitz, A., & Bardy, H. (2018) Student-Staff Partnerships: Responding Compassionately to ‘Big Data’. 6th International Academic Identities Conference (IAIC), Hiroshima University, Japan, 20th September 2018.

Benkwitz, A., and Healy, L. (2018) Utilising the CHIME Conceptual Framework to Explore a Co-Produced Football for Mental Health Initiative Delivered in the Community in Birmingham, UK. 6th International Qualitative Research in Sport and Exercise (QRSE), University of British Columbia, Canada, 5th June 2018.

Benkwitz, A. (2018) Evaluating the Lived Experiences of Medium-Secure Service-Users in a Football Therapy initiative. Secure Research Committee, BSMHFT, Birmingham, 15th March 2018.

Parkes, S., Benkwitz, A., and Bardy, H. (2018) Learning Analytics in the Student Centred University: Perspectives and Partnerships at Newman University. European First Year Experience (EFYE), Utrecht University, The Netherlands, 26th June 2018.

Benkwitz, A. (2017) Mental Health and Sport: Reflecting on an Ethnographic Study of ‘Football Therapy’ Sessions in the National Health Service (NHS) in Birmingham, UK. The European Conference on Mental Health (ECMH), Berlin, Germany, 4th-6th October 2017.

Clark, J., and Benkwitz, A. (2016) ‘The Development of the Birmingham Recovery College for Mental Health’. The Conference for the Launch of the ‘Mental Health Research and Innovation Hub’ at the National Centre for Mental Health, Birmingham, 23rd February 2016.

Benkwitz, A. (2014) ‘Conflict and Rivalry between Football Fans in the City of Birmingham: Using Ethnography to Explore Territoriality’. University of Bergamo’s (Italy) Etnografia e Ricerca Qualitativa, 5-7th June 2014.