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Jenny Mackay

Dr Jennifer Mackay

Principal Lecturer

Psychology

Staff Group(s)
Psychology

Role

Jenny is a Principal Lecturer in Psychology driving change and innovation for real-world impact in reducing domestic violence perpetration. Her work integrates Jenny's 15+ years of frontline criminal justice and health practice experience into her academic role, where she engages in collaboration and partnership with public and private sector organisations. Her collaborative approach to consultancy, research and knowledge exchange activity  is driven by a focus on benefiting practitioners and services who work with individuals and families affected by harm, and on equipping the next generation of psychology students with key critical thinking and evidence-based values to work in forensic psychology and forensic mental health related careers. Jenny works in a trauma-informed, fair and authentic way.

Jenny's expertise lie in understanding the landscape of interventions for domestic violence perpetration and the most up-to-date evidence-base that explains why individuals perpetrate abusive behaviours in relationships. Her commitment to justice and rehabilitation is evidence in projects that examine the value and effectivness of interventions, such as ongoing advisory board membership to an innovative triage service for perpetrators of domestic violence, The Chrysalis Centre, following a comprehensive evaluation from 2023-2025.

As lead for the Relational Abuse strand of the Harm and Stigma Prevention in Forensic Psychology Research Group at NTU and an active contributor to the Knowledge Exchange landscape at NTU, Jenny supports the development of applied research and practice activity with colleagues. Jenny is currently on supervision teams for several doctoral students on topics related to her areas of research interest. Her commitment to aligning practice, research and scholarship activity resulted in her developing a mock prison cell at NTU's city campus, an experiential learning and reflective space that has been dressed with items to showcase prison life, including authentic equipment from HMP Nottingham.

Career overview

Jenny is a Chartered Psychologist, Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society, and Senior Fellow of Advance HE. The core thread of Jenny's career has been about bringing people and evidence together to solve problems that stem from vulnerability and risky behaviour. She has been in academia for over 10 years, educating and consulting on  specialist areas related to forensic mental health, trauma and offending behaviour, with a focus on domestic violence perpetration. Externally to her role at NTU, Jenny is a Trustee for Leicestershire YMCA.

Prior to working in academia, Jenny spent over 15 years working in practitioner roles across the Prison Service, NHS, Probation Service, Secure Children's Homes, and the third sector. She has delivered substance misuse work, offending behaviour programmes and psychological one-to-one work in prisons with adults and young adults. She has worked in a Secure Children's Home with 10-17 year olds who have offended or who are considered 'at risk'. Jenny also gained experience carrying out in-depth functional analyses and was trained to write and evaluate Positive Behaviour Support plans whilst working as a Behavioural Clinical Specialist for the NHS with adults with learning disabilities and challenging behaviour. Jenny has also worked for the Probation Service, as a Project and Policy officer for an adult education research charity and has delivered workshops for expectant and new parents.

Jenny has a PhD titled, 'Comparing the treatment needs of women and men who perpetrate intimate partner violence', MSc in Applied Forensic Psychology, and BSc (Hons) in Human Psychology.

Research areas

Jenny is primarily interested in intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetration, particularly understanding the evidence base of pathways to perpetration and how these might inform interventions. She is particularly interested in how women come to perpetrate IPV and the psychological mechanisms that underpin this, and also interested in how trauma impacts on the lives of those who have perpetrated violence, whether men or women. Jenny is interested in policy and practice development in this area, specifically, how interventions for those who have perpetrated can be developed to reflect our most up-to-date understanding of the evidence base. Jenny has previously led Knowledge Exchange projects to map activity in the forensic mental health sector and the domestic violence sector across the Midlands, and is keen to work with external partners on progressing work in this field.

Jenny is keen to engage in Knowledge Exchange activities, and works with colleagues across the sector to build relationships and practice-related research activity, such as:

  • His Majesty's Prison and Probation Service
  • Secure Children's Homes
  • Leicestershire CAMHS
  • Leicestershire Police
  • YMCA Leicestershire

Jenny has recently been involved in a number of systematic reviews related to: paramedics experiences of working with male victims of IPV; risk factors for women's fire setting behaviour; risk and need profiles of IPV perpetrators; relational practices of criminal justice staff.

External activity

Jenny is currently completing consultancy as an academic member of The Chrysalis Centre's Expert Advisory Board.

Jenny regularly gives talk with various practitioner-facing forums that includes individuals working with bodies such as HMPPS, the NHS and third sector organisations working with vulnerable and/or offending populations.

Chartered Psychologist & Associate Member of the Division of Forensic Psychology (British Psychological Society).

Previous  external engagement activity has included:

  • Funded consultancy for Nottingham/shire Violence Reduction Partnership
  • Professional networking activity in the domestic violence sector
  • Funded evaluation for Hertfordshire & Bedfordshire OPCC
  • One of the founding members of EBDARN - Evidence-Based Domestic Abuse Research Network. Launched Autumn 2022.
  • Previously an Associate Member of the MoJ's Correctional Service Accreditation and Advise Panel (CSAAP).
  • Professional networking activity in the forensic mental health sector

Sponsors and collaborators

Jenny's research has been funded internally by Nottingham Trent University, and she has worked on projects externally funded by organisations such as the Home Office, Herts/Beds OPCC, and Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Violence Reduction Partnership.

Her work is conducted with external collaborators, including:

- Prof. Nicola Graham-Kevan (University of Central Lancashire)

- Curzon Consulting

- i3 Analytics

- Prof. Ben Hine (University of West London)

- Associate Prof. Liz Bates (University of Cumbria)

- Prof. Alexandra Lysova (Simon Fraser University, Canada)

Publications

Kitson-Boyce, R., Mackay, J., Bell, K., Gair, H., & Milani, S. Z. (2025). What Do We Know About the Risk Factors for Women’s Firesetting Behavior: A Systematic Review. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 0(0).

Mackay, J. (2025, June). Constructing coercion and control: A workshop exploring professionals’ perceptions of coercive controlling behaviours in relationships Presentation given at BPS Division of Forensic Psychology annual conference. Glasgow, Scotland

Levy, A., Stafford, D., Stafford, S., Briggs Deardon, L., Mackay, J., Hardy, S., O'Reilly, M., Lewis, M. and Archard, P. (2025). Providing specialist mental health care to youth justice service-involved young people British Journal of Mental Health Nursing. 14(2)

Lysova, A., Hanson, K., & Mackay, J. (2025). Rates of Male and Female Physical Victimization and Perpetration in Intimate Relationships: A Comprehensive Review. Partner Abuse.

Lysova, A., Hanson, K., & Mackay, J. (2024). Bidirectional and Unidirectional Intimate Partner Violence: A Comprehensive Review. Partner Abuse.

Mclocklin, G., Kellezi, B., Stevenson, C., & Mackay, J. (2024). Disclosure Decisions and Help-Seeking Experiences Amongst Victim-Survivors of Non-Consensual Intimate Image Distribution. Victims & Offenders, 1–27. https://doi.org/10.1080/15564886.2024.2329107

McGrath, A., Mackay, J., & Baguley, T. (2024). The impact of childhood adversity on female‐perpetrated intimate partner violence in young adulthood. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 29(2), 147-165.

Hine, B. A., Mackay, J., Baguley, T., Graham-Kevan, N., Cunliffe, M., & Galloway, A. (2022).  Understanding Perpetrators of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV). Home Office.

Mackay, J. (in press) “Throwing the first punch before I got hurt” An exploration of the offence process and function of intimate partner violence and abuse perpetrated by imprisoned women. In N. Booth, I. Masson & L. Baldwin (Eds.), Intersectionality, family justice and violence. Bristol University Press

Mackay, J., Bowen, E. & Walker, K. (in press) “What’s the point in talking about it, when I’m the one being punished for it?” Men as both perpetrator and victim of intimate partner violence. In E.A. Bates & J. Taylor (Eds.), Domestic violence against men and boys: Experiences of male victims of intimate partner violence. Routledge.

Hine, B. A., Bates, E. A., Graham-Kevan, N., & Mackay, J. (2022). Comparing the demographic characteristics, and reported abuse type, contexts and outcomes of help-seeking heterosexual male and female victims of domestic violence: Part II – Exit from specialist services. Partner Abuse

Hine, B. A., Bates, E. A., Mackay, J., & Graham-Kevan, N. (2022). Comparing the demographic characteristics, and reported abuse type, contexts and outcomes of help-seeking heterosexual male and female victims of domestic violence: Part I – Who presents to specialist services? Partner Abuse

Conference presentation Understanding the developmental pathways to men and women’s perpetration of intimate partner violence and abuse BPS Division of Forensic psychology annual conference

Mackay, J., Pritchard, C., Yan, R. J., Kuhn, I., Barker, E. (2021). Ambulance clinicians’ identification and management of male victims of intimate partner violence: a systematic review protocol. PROSPERO 2021 CRD42021253584

Newton, A., Mackay, J., Ikhile, D. & Wallace, L. (2020) Domestic abuse perpetrator interventions: Extended Rapid Evidence Assessment. Centre for Crime, Offending, Prevention and Engagement (COPE), Nottingham Trent University.

Conference presentation (Conference cancelled) Understanding the developmental pathways to men and women’s perpetration of intimate partner violence and abuse BPS Division of Forensic psychology annual conference, Solihull

Walker, K., Brown, S., Mackay, J. & Browning, B. (2019) Scoping the evidence on the design, implementation, evaluation and effectiveness of services for children who are vulnerable to, at immediate risk of, or being sexually exploited, or who need help recovering from sexual exploitation. NSPCC

Finalist for Coventry University’s Postgraduate Researcher of the Year award

Bowen, E. and Mackay, J. (2019) ‘Towards evidence-based treatment of female perpetrated intimate partner violence and abuse’. in Intimate Partner Violence: New Perspectives in Research and Practice. ed. by Bates, E. & Taylor, J. Routledge

Mackay, J., Bowen, E., Walker, K. & O’Doherty (2018) Risk factors for female perpetrators of intimate partner violence within criminal justice settings: A systematic review. Aggression and Violent Behavior 41, 128-146

Conference presentation ‘Comparing the pathways to IPV perpetration in women and men’ PsyPAG annual conference, University of Huddersfield

Conference presentation ‘Pathways to IPV perpetration in women and men’ Centre for Violence Prevention, University of Worcester

Awarded ‘People’s Choice’ at the final for Coventry University’s Three Minute Thesis competition

Conference presentation ‘Female perpetrators of Intimate Partner Violence and Abuse: Do we know why and do we know what impact this has on children?’ National Centre for the Study and Prevention of Violence and Abuse, University of Worcester

Conference presentation ‘Risk factors for female perpetrators of intimate partner violence and abuse within criminal justice settings: A systematic review’ Violence and Interpersonal Aggression, Coventry University

Poster presentation ‘Risk factors for female perpetrators of intimate partner violence and abuse: A systematic review’ BPS Division of Forensic Psychology Annual Conference, Brighton

See all of Dr Jennifer Mackay's publications...

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