denise blake

Kāore ia i te mōhio ko wai tōna ingoa nā te mea he whāngaihia ia.

Denise has engaged in the social justice sector as a health professional and researcher for over 20 years. She currently works as a Senior Lecturer in the School of Psychology / the Joint Centre for Disaster Research where she teaches health psychology and emergency management courses. Her primary research interests concern identity, welfare, gender, health promotion and disaster response. Denise values using collaborative research approaches to complex social issues. Her PhD Wade in the Water: Storying Adoptees’ Experiences through the Adoption Act 1955 explored the lived experiences of adoptees as constructed through the Adoption Act 1955 and contested the legal exclusion of adoptees from normalising kinship narratives. Denise’s thesis invites you to consider how problematic psychological responses to adoption for adoptees are normal responses to abnormal circumstances.