Member blog: Jessica Mookherjee

Working in public health since 1998, I’ve seen how transformative this field is—for individuals and communities. My personal journey is shaped by adversity as a child carer to parents experiencing mental health issues and growing up in an immigrant family during challenging times which ignited my passion for tackling health inequalities. My earliest role—supporting Holocaust survivors at Jewish Care—showed me the power of compassion, community, and opportunity, and built my confidence to pursue psychology and community mental health. 

Progressing into community development, a Master’s in Biological Anthropology deepened my understanding of how environment and adaptation shape our health. As a community researcher and advocate, I recognised the urgency of addressing mental health upstream—preventing illness by tackling poverty, trauma, and exclusion at their roots. My early roles in Lewisham public health placed me into the emerging field of public mental health, when stigma was rife, and outcomes for minority communities were starkly unequal.   

Registering as a Consultant in Public Health in 2007 via the UKPHR portfolio route, I purposefully chose practice over academia—believing there, my lived experience, community insights, and research skills could be a catalyst for greater change. For example, I’ve led work on teenage pregnancy, linking reproductive health and mental wellbeing. I loved working with the young mothers on the estates; I related to them. 

Preventing suicide and self-harm, nurturing hope, and fostering community resilience have been lifelong motivators and throughout my career, bringing evidence and humanity together has guided my approach. In Lewisham, I helped develop strategies to narrow inequalities evident by the high prevalence of Black and minority groups in inpatient settings and under-representation in therapy. These are challenges that endure, but rigorous population health and sustained effort are bringing progress.  

Educational work is close to my heart. I’ve contributed to developing public health teaching and did a stint as Training Programme Director, wanting to create a more diverse workforce. I enjoy supporting trainees and championing opportunities for people of all backgrounds, and am proud to have developed a pioneering final-year Doctoral Clinical Psychology placement within my team. 

Now, as Consultant in Public Health at Kent County Council, I lead on public mental health and substance misuse—deeply personal to me, having witnessed many lives lost to addiction and trauma. It’s one of those areas in public health where you see actual lives being saved as services improve. 

Place-based community development remains central to me. Supporting coastal communities in building local health alliances, collaborating with the voluntary sector, and directly engaging people who experience health inequalities is energising. Building relationships—and sustaining them—has been a leadership journey.  

There are however many miss-steps and genuine progress takes persistence: short-term projects come and go, but real change is only possible with consistent, long-term relationships. 

In a meeting, long ago, me and a couple of colleagues had an idea to grow men’s sheds in Kent—now Kent has one of the UK’s largest self-sustaining SHED networks—showing how small beginnings can scale and endure. We started small, establishing local networks for trauma-informed care, now embraced across the county, demonstrating the ripple effect of public health team working.  

These are the stories that get me out of bed in the morning. It’s important too to have a work-life balance, so I have a secret life as a poet. It’s important to look after your soul! 

In both my public – and secret – life I am driven by hope, rigour, and relationships. The game is long, but I have seen remarkable transformation when evidence, compassion, and collaboration come together. That is what keeps me working for a healthier, fairer Kent.