Chris Pavlakis

Chris Pavlakis

Chris a peer supporter and a community organiser active in immigrant and neurodivergent spaces. He has been a regular public contributor utilising his lived experience in various health and care studies and working with NHS trusts, research organisations and charities.

He is often consulted and asked to contribute to projects related to mental health, cancer and adult social care.  In January 2021, he joined the Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) South London’s Covid Panel which later became the ARC’s Public Research Panel.  A year later he was recruited to be one of the three public contributors in the KIS Steering Group. At KIS he has contributed to research projects including the QI Theory of Change project, recruitment panels, event planning and operational governance. 

Research interests

Chris is also a patient group representative for the Q Community of Health Foundation and works with an inter-disciplinary team together on pressing issues, most notably the Q Action Lab, a 5-month long series of intense workshops exploring the theme of tech enhanced remote monitoring.  

"Accumulating experiences by this exposure to multi-stakeholder working groups, I’ve grown to the level of a team player who learns fast in interactive environments, able to listen attentively, process large documents in short periods of time and turn my lived/ living experiences into perspectives for draft policy papers" Chris Pavlakis.  

Past experiences include the co-development of an interactive networking platform (NetMap for the pan-London equality network HEAR), the ongoing consultation for Co-Production (with the Co-Production Collective) and the chairing of meetings and activities with the collective ‘Other Ways to Care’ exploring the nexus of arts and well-being for persons with lived experiences. 

Other affiliations:  

• Lived experience reviewer for ARC South London 

• Lived experience practitioner in various working groups within mental health charities including Mind and the Samaritans 

• Public contributor/ member of the Cancer Research UK Insight Panels (Research and Strategy, Inclusion and Diversity) 

• Q Community (The Heath Foundation) patient group representative, assessor in funds, public contributor  

• Member of the Co-production collective 

• Member of the pan-London equality group HEAR