Workshops

Dr. Oxford is a Research Professor at the University of Washington in the department of Child, Family and Population Health Nursing and Executive Director of the Barnard Center for Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health which provides training to over 4000 professionals annually. Her expertise is in home visiting and the use of attachment-based and strength-based strategies to support families with young children. She is a principal investigator of five Randomized Clinical Trails (RCT) and co-investigator on three RCT’s, all funded by the National Institutes of Health evaluating Promoting First Relationships, a brief, Evidence-Based home visiting program. Four funded RCT’s were conducted in the child welfare system in Washington State, two RCT’s were in partnership with two Native American Tribes, and one with Spanish and English mothers with a mental health diagnosis.

Chris Hatherly commenced as Executive Director of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia in July, 2019. Previously he was Director, Science Policy at the Australian Academy of Science, and National Research Manager with Alzheimer’s Australia. Chris has a PhD in cognitive psychology from the ANU, and has 10 years’ experience working at the interface of research, policy, service delivery and community. Professor Havighurst is the Principal Researcher with a team of staff and students who are involved in the development, research and dissemination of a parenting program called Tuning in to Kids (TIK). TIK is one of the first evidence-based parenting programs that aims to change parent emotion socialisation practices, which includes how parents respond to emotions in themselves and their children, in order to improve children’s emotional functioning and reduce or prevent adverse behavioural and mental health outcomes. The TIK team have evaluated TIK with community and clinical samples of preschool and primary school aged children and the program has also been extended to parents of toddlers, parents of adolescents and to fathers. Professor Havighurst provides supervision and guidance to students and researchers in Australia and around the world to conduct evaluations of the TIK programs.

Dr. Shelina Bhamani is an emerging leader in Early Childhood Development (ECD) from the Global South. She holds a doctorate in education with a specialization in ECD and is a globally certified ECD educator. With over 15 years of experience across academic and programmatic settings, Dr. Bhamani’s work focuses on implementation science and strengthening system capacity through workforce development. She has pioneered the integration of responsive parenting education within healthcare settings in Pakistan, setting a precedent for scalable, evidence-based ECD interventions.

Amit Baumel is an Associate Professor and a clinical psychologist who directs the Digital Interventions Psychology Lab at the Department of Community Mental Health, University of Haifa, Israel. His research primarily focuses on methods to increase user engagement with digital programs. Amit has developed several programs that have been utilized by tens of thousands of individuals. These include a digital parent training program for which he received an innovation award, and a program training volunteers to support women with perinatal depression. He also developed the Enlight suite of quality rating scales and co-founded the MindTools.io website, which showcases quality ratings of eHealth programs. Amit is a board member of the International Association for Research on Internet Interventions, and an Associate Editor at Frontiers in Digital Health.

Dr Amy Mitchell is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work and an Honorary Research Fellow in the Parenting and Family Support Centre at UQ. She is the recipient of consecutive Children's Hospital Foundation Early Career Fellowships (2018-2021, 2021-2022). Amy is a paediatric nurse and completed her PhD (Health) in 2011, for which she received the Executive Dean's Commendation for Higher Degree Research. Amy's research aims to improve heatlh and developmental outcomes for children and thier families. Areas of focus include the use of evidence-based parenting support to improve outcomes for children with chronic health and developmental conditions (e.g., asthma, eczema, type 1 diabetes, autism spectrum disorder), supporting families to develop healthy habits from early childhood (e.g., oral health, nutrition, screen use), and supporting parents in the transition to parenthood (e.g., perinatal mental health, breastfeeding). Dr Koa Whittingham is a clinical and educational/developmental psychologist with research interests across parenting, neurodevelopmental disabilities and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). Koa began her career building key empirical support for the flagship UQ program Stepping Stones Triple P for specific neurodevelopmental disabilities including autism, acquired brain injury and cerebral palsy. She has since developed an international reputation as a leader in developing and testing novel acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) interventions to support parents, including using online/telehealth formats. Her contributions to the field of ACT-based parenting intervention were recognised by her election as a Fellow to the Assocaition for Contextual Beahvioural Science in 2023. Koa has a strong track record with over 100 papers and 6 book chapters and currently leads an MRFF testing her online intervention Parenting Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (PACT) with 300 families of children with neurodevelopmental disabilities or developmental delay. She has written a self-help book for the transition to motherhood, Becoming Mum, as well as the first clinical manual on applying ACT to parenting support, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy the Clinician's Guide for Supporting Parents. Dr Jacqui Barfoot is an experienced Occupational Therapist and Postdoctoral Clinical Researcher with the Child Health Research Centre, at the University of Queensland. She is committed to creating a shift in early childhood intervention where parents are at the centre of therapy, and child outcomes are better optimised by strengthening parent-child interactions. Jacqui is involved in several clinical research projects that focus on supporting parents who have a child with developmental difficulties. She has also developed an innovative and practical training package for early childhood practitioners. This training package supports practitioners to feel confident incorporating a relationship-focused approach in their therapy as a foundation for all other areas of child development. Dr Grace Kirby is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Child Health Research Centre at the University of Queensland and holds a concurrent position in the Parenting and Family Support Centre. Grace’s work focuses on improving children’s wellbeing outcomes through supporting and building the capability of the adults who directly influence children’s development; specifically, parents and teachers. Central to this work is a focus on translating research knowledge into real-world impact through the development, evaluation, and community roll-out of evidence-based practice in the areas of parenting, family intervention, and support programs for school staff. Grace is the co-developer of Family-School Connect, a reciprocal program for both families and school staff that aims to enhance children’s learning and wellbeing outcomes through promoting partnerships between children’s home and school.

Patricia M. Crittenden, PhD, is a developmental psychopathologist who has designed and administered parenting programs, created The Family Relations Institute, written 11 books and published more than 150 empirical papers and chapters. She is the primary theorist for the Dynamic-Maturational Model of Attachment and Adaptation (DMM) for which she created a life-span series of assessments of human adaptation that yield personal strategies for coping with danger and psychological traumas. The strategies and psychological traumas, together with the information processing that underlies them, form the basis for DMM Integrative Treatment. Crittenden received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the European Family Therapy Association. Crittenden’s goal has been to define, assess, and respond to human distress in helpful, function-based, and non-pejorative ways. Helen Johnson is an independent social worker with 25 years’ experience. She is skilled in the range of the developmentally sequenced attachment assessments tied to the Dynamic Maturational Model (DMM) of Attachment and Adaptation, including the Infant Strange Situation Procedure (SSP), the Preschool Assessment of Attachment PAA), Toddler CARE-Index (TCI), the School Age-Assessment of Attachment (SAA), and the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI). She uses a DMM-informed framework for assessing and planning therapeutic interventions, including interventions aimed at rehabilitating children back to birth parents, supporting adoptive and foster families who face is risk of disruption. Together with Dr. Crittenden, she developed and implemented the 1-2-3: You & Me: A Method for Personalizing Parenting Intervention.