Research

Matt was an academic in attachment theory and developmental psychopathology before training as a clinician – indeed he conducted his first gold-standard Ainsworth Strange Situation over 30 years ago as an undergraduate at Cambridge. 

His current research interests include the application of evidence-based parenting programs to special populations, including adopted children, children in care and children with callous-unemotional traits. He also publishes on the identification and treatment of attachment problems, as well as practitioners’ understanding of attachment and related issues. Matt has had a long-standing research interest in the impact of parental psychopathology on infant and child attachment and the measurement of attachment security beyond infancy.  

You can read his academic CV and access a publications list, hosted at KCL, with links to most papers, and here is a link to his ResearchGate profile

Training

Matt can provide a wide range of training to various professionals in different sectors on various topics including: assessing and intervening with adopted and fostered children; parenting skills; attachment and trauma;  developmental psychopathology

As part of his role in KCL Matt provides academic teaching and practitioner training to a wide range of professionals (including psychologists, social workers, psychiatrist, educationalists). He leads the Parenting Module for the London and South East Children & Young People’s Increasing Access to Psychological Therapies programme (CYP-IAPT) at KCL.

One of Matt’s particular interests is in sharing knowledge about the ever changing science behind the neurobiological legacy of maltreatment and neglect, and its impact for practitioners (the science is complex but highlights how expected it is that children and young people have a diversity of responses to negative experiences). See the blog page for more on these issues.

Recently he delivered a series of trainings to social works in an RAA on assessing mental health needs in children freed for adoption using formal mental health methods (e.g., the DAWBA), and to use personality assessments to build collaborative relationships with prospective adopters, as part of a DoE funded Practice Improvement Grant