Welcome to Mainstreaming TJ 2021

Here at ‘MainstreamingTJ’, we have started 2021 off with some exciting changes.

The website has been revamped, making the diverse blogs, resources and links to the wider ISTJ community easily accessible.  

We have also expanded the editorial team behind the blogs.

Today, we introduce our two new editors all the way from the shores of Aotearoa, New Zealand – meet Alice Mills and Katey Thom.

Kia ora! I’m Alice Mills, a Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Auckland. I’m originally from Derby in the UK and have lived in Aotearoa New Zealand since 2011. I teach several courses on crime, criminal justice and gender, and have previously conducted various research studies at the interface of the criminal justice and health and social care systems, including those on mental health in prisons and the role of community and voluntary organisations in criminal justice. Since coming to Aotearoa, I have researched problem-solving courts with Katey, with a particular focus on Te Kooti o Timatanga Hou (the New Beginnings Court) which works with people who are homeless or in unstable housing. This dovetails with my other current passion of housing and I am currently leading a research study on housing and prisoner reintegration (sometimes known as ‘re-entry’). 

…. And I am Katey Thom, of Pākehā (NZ European) descent, born in Ōtautahi/Christchurch in the South Island of New Zealand and now live in the beautiful North Island seaside town of Whaingaroa/Raglan, about two hours out of Auckland. I am a Senior Lecturer in Law at AUT where I teach about TJ as part of various courses on non-adversarial justice, mental health and the law, and social justice, law and society. I suppose I would describe myself as an interdisciplinary researcher – my academic background is in sociology and health sciences – and I mainly explore the spaces where law and health interface. In particular, I am passionate about social justice issues in mental health and addiction, which recently has led me to focus on enhancing the use of advance directives in mental health (see mapmymentalhealth.com), re-envisaging criminal justice systems to better support people experiencing mental distress and/or addiction (see heturekiatika.com) and exploring the way police respond to people in mental distress. I absolutely love my new found skills in working on websites to amplify research, so was super keen to take this opportunity to work on this site!

We both look forward to will working behind the scenes, alongside some other secret squirrel helpers, to bring you fantastic new blogs through this year.