The Research Team
Professor. Judy Hutchings; has worked in North Wales for over 30 years. She is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist with the North West Wales NHS Trust and works with children with significant behavioural difficulties in both specialist and primary care
service providers and other educators concerned with children and their families. She is also Director of the research team where she has worked since 1988 and undertakes research with referred children and their families and in early preventive work. She has held a number of grants and is the principal grant holder for
the Health Foundation Grant researching the efficacy of the Webster-Stratton Incredible Years BASIC parenting programme for "high risk" children in Sure Start services across
North Wales. She has published extensively and established the Incredible Years Wales, Centre to research and train people to deliver the Webster-Stratton parent, child and
teacher programmes
Dr. Tracey Bywater came to Bangor University in 1995 to study Psychology. Her Ph.D. at Bangor investigated the link between infant speech perception and phonological short-term memory. Tracey has taught at Bangor, in both the Psychology and Criminology Departments. She retained her interest in children at risk of criminality and was appointed as Research Officer on the project evaluating the Incredible Years BASIC Parenting Programme in Welsh Sure Start areas in 2003. Since that time she has managed various projects, in the field of family interventions, and written up findings for publication. Tracey is currently a consultant for an Atlantic Philanthropies funded Irish IY evaluation, Project Trials Coordinator in the School of Psychology, Bangor University, and Research Fellow at Dartington’s Social Research Unit.
Nia Griffith is a PhD student with a 1+3 studentship funded by the University of Wales’ centre for developing teaching through the medium of Welsh. Nia graduated in Psychology from the University of Wales, Bangor in 2003. Nia then spent three years working as part of the management team of the Snowdonia Design and Enterprise Centre, a community project aimed at providing affordable premises and support for businesses operating in rural areas.
Nia successfully completed her MSc in Psychological research in 2007, with her MSc project focusing on producing DVD’s of children displaying variable levels of distractibility. These DVD’s are now being researched as an Undergraduate project. Nia is now in the second year of her PhD. The focus of the PhD is the Evaluation of the Incredible Years Toddler parenting programme being run in nine flying start areas in Wales. The programme is being evaluated via a combination of parent report measures, a direct measure of the child’s developmental level and a direct observation of parent-child interaction. Data collection will be completed by December 2009, the PhD is expected to be completed by October 2010.
Kirstie Cooper graduated in Psychology at the University of Liverpool in 2008 and then returned to Wales to continue her studies. Kirstie studied an M.Sc. in Foundations of Clinical Psychology at Bangor University and then joined the Incredible Years team as a Research Assistant, to assist Nia with the collection of data for the evaluation of the Toddler Programme. In October, Kirstie was awarded a 125th anniversary bursary to study a Ph.D. at Bangor University. Her Ph.D. will evaluate the new four-session Incredible Years School Readiness Parenting programme, aimed at enhancing school readiness in pre-school children.
Catrin Jones completed her first degree in 1994 at Bangor University she then completed her Masters in Edinburgh University before working as a lecturer in further education. She has also worked within the public sector supporting business development before starting her family and a Childminding business. After completing her post-graduate conversion diploma in Psychology with the Open University she is evaluating the Baby programme as part of her Ph.D. funded through the generosity of the Incredible Years charity and European Knowledge transfer fund.
Margiad Elen Williams read Psychology at Cardiff University and graduated in 2009. She had previously worked at the Incredible Years Centre during the summer of 2008 on a Go Wales placement. Following her graduation, she was fortunate to get a job as a temporary research assistant at the Incredible Years Centre helping to write research papers for publication. She has just completed an MRes (Masters in Research) funded by KESS (European funding with Incredible Years Wales as co-sponsor) comparing two measures of child developmental abilities.
Nicole Gridley read psychology at Bangor University, graduating in 2007 and is now in the final year of her Masters degree in the Foundations of Clinical Psychology also at Bangor. She was awarded a GoWales placement to assist in the pilot study, evaluation of the DINA School Programme in the summer of 2009. She was recently given an extended contract to assist in the data collection of the evaluation of the Toddler Programme with Nia Griffith. Nicole will begin a Ph.D. working in the area of child development in October; this will hopefully lead onto a successful career within this field of research.
Dilys Williams is the Centre's Administrator and has worked for the Centre since March 2001. Her responsibilities include the creating and maintaining of all administrative files pertaining to the Centre; the organising of training courses, and the organising of the annual Incredible Years Wales conference. The Centre's annual Newsletter is another of Dilys' tasks.
Kath Chitty joined the Centre in February 2006 and is providing part-time clerical support to the team in general and Dilys in particular, covering many aspects of the work of the Centre. Prior to retirement from full-time employment in August 2005, Kath worked for fourteen years in the busy administrative team in the School of Psychology, Bangor University.