About
Jessica Bird is a Doctoral Academic Teacher and PhD Student at the University of Liverpool. She predominantly teaches statistics to first- and second-year Undergraduate students, whilst also providing pastoral and academic support through her role as an Academic Advisor. Her main research interests concern resilience, (in)formal caregiving and Dementia Care. Specifically, her work focuses on resilience within dementia care, exploring resilience within the social care workforce for people living with dementia predominantly.
Jessica holds a first-class integrated Masters (with honours) degree in Clinical and Health Psychology from the University of Liverpool. Her Undergraduate thesis examined the role of pets in spousal caregivers of dementia, including how pets support spousal caregivers and contribute to their quality of life and resilience. Her Master’s thesis further examined the support available to people living with dementia and their caregivers, considering the widening gaps of support for people living with dementia and their caregivers. Specifically her master's thesis explored post-diagnostic services available to informal caregivers of people living with young onset dementia and how post-diagnostic support can facilitate caregiver resilience, considering the increasing number of people living with young-onset dementia. She has expertise in the use of mixed research methods, but specialises in cross-sectional and longitudinal qualitative research using primary and secondary data.
Jessica's PhD research will further build upon this body of work and aims to further explore resilience within dementia care, specifically within dementia social care workers, with the aim of facilitating resilience within the dementia social care workforce.