Dr Catherine Kay PhD, BSc

Research Associate within the Psychiatry Research Group. 

Current projects include:

Social Outcomes and Early Experience (SOCiAL): an investigation of social impairment following adverse expereince and disrupted care during early childhood funded by the Waterloo Foundation.

The Care and Placement Evaluation (CaPE): a national evaluation of Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care in England and Scotland.

Manchester Inventory for Playground Observation (MIPO): A structured observational assessment of peer social functioning.

Manchester Child Attachment Story Task (MCAST)

Roles Outside the University

Local Authority School Governor: Piper Hill Specialist Support School

My primary research interest is in the relationship between exposure to environmental adversity such as maltreatment, neglect and disrupted care, and social impairment in childhood.  My work focuses on social relationship functioning, psychopathology and axis I attachment disorder.  I am particularly interested in understanding the aetiological mechanisms of attachment disorder and underlying social cognitive functioning. 

My doctoral work examined the relationship between social cognition, psychopathology and attachment disorder behaviour in adolescents following exposure to severe environmental adversity and disrupted care.  My subsequent work has focussed on the characterisation of attachment disorder behaviour in looked after adolescents with special focus on the implications for assessment and diagnosis in non-institutionalised children.  

I recently began work on the SOCiAL study, which investigates disinhibited attachment disorder, autistic symptomatology and social cognition in looked after children during middle childhood.  This work will additionally test new hypotheses concerning the influence of environmental and genetic factors in the aetiology of social impairment.

My more general interests are in evolutionary psychology, developmental neuropsychology and the role of gene-environment interactions in child development, particularly in relation to parenting, attachment and social development.

Assessment of social cognition

Randomised controlled trials in social care settings.

Quantitative methods

Synthesis of complex data sets.

I completed an undergraduate degree in Psychology at the University of Manchester in 2005.  I then spent several months working with adults with mental health problems and children with severe attachment problems.  In 2006 I secured a Strategic Studentship from the University of Manchester to study for a PhD looking at attachment disorder and social cognition in children with dirupted early care.  This was funded by the Medical Research Council, the Youth Justice Board and the University of Manchester and was completed in 2010.  Throughout my PhD I worked on two multi-site evaluations of Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care comissioned by the Youth Justice Board and the Department for Children, Schools and Families in collaboration with researchers from the University of York Social Policy Research Unit. I am now working on an extension of the Randomised Controlled Trial element of the Care and Placement Evaluation in Glasgow.  I also recently began a new project (SOCiAL) which builds on my PhD work, looking at disinhibited attachment disorder, social cognition and autism in adopted and foster children.

PhD Psychiatry

BSc Psychology

Professor Jonathan Green - Supervisor

Professor Nina Biehal, University of York Social Policy Research Unit.