Our research aims to improve understanding of the development and maintenance of anxiety, related disorders and depression in children and young people, with the ultimate aim of enabling them to lead the lives they want to live.

We work closely with young people with lived experience and their families to make sure that the research we do focuses on the things that are important to families and is conducted in a way that they are happy with. We also work extensively with key stakeholders (including practitioners, policy makers, and international colleagues) to make sure that the work we do is relevant and can be implemented widely in practice.

We use a range of different research methods, including conducting interviews, observation, completion of questionnaires, and clinical treatment studies.

We have a rigorous application process that researchers follow before they can conduct research in the clinic. If you are a researcher interested in collaborating with us, then please visit our ‘For Researchers’ section.

If you are a young person, parent, or carer who is interested in our research opportunities, then check out our ‘Participating in research’ page.

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Research Publications

Here are some examples of publications from our research team, and publications about our treatments:

Anxiety Disorders

• Development of a brief assessment tool to identify children with probable anxiety disorders: https://doi.org/10.1002/jcv2.12265  
• Digitally augmented, parent-led CBT versus treatment as usual for child anxiety problems in child mental health services in England and Northern Ireland: a pragmatic, non-inferiority, clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness randomised controlled trial: https://doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(23)00429-7 
• Anxiety disorders in children and adolescents: A summary and review of the literature: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2023.104376  
• ‘It opened my eyes’: Parents’ experiences of their child receiving an anxiety disorder (qualitative study): https://doi.org/10.1177/13591045221088708  

Social Anxiety Disorder

• Cognitive and behavioural processes in adolescents with social anxiety disorder (cross-sectional study): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2023.104416  
• Internet-delivered therapist-assisted cognitive therapy for adolescent social anxiety disorder (OSCA): a randomised controlled trial addressing preliminary efficacy and mechanisms of action: https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.13680  
• Adolescents’ experience of receiving internet-delivered cognitive therapy for social anxiety disorder (qualitative study): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.invent.2023.100664 

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

• Utilising patient and public involvement to increase the acceptability of brief CBT for OCD in young people: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1754470X23000363  
• Therapist guided, parent-led cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) for pre-adolescent children with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD): a non-concurrent multiple baseline case series: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1352465823000450
• Randomized controlled trial of full and brief cognitive-behaviour therapy and wait-list for paediatric obsessive-compulsive disorder: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.2011.02419.x  

Anxiety and Autism

• Understanding mechanisms that maintain social anxiety disorder in autistic individuals through the Clark and Wells (1995) model and beyond: A systematic review: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10567-024-00509-z  
• Are we missing character in strengths-based approaches to coaching and therapy for autistic people? (perspective piece): https://doi.org/10.1089/aut.2024.0227  
• Understanding the relationship between social camouflaging in autism and safety behaviours in social anxiety in autistic and non-autistic adolescents (correlational study): https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.13884  

Depression

• Brief Behavioural Activation (Brief BA) for Adolescent Depression: A Pilot Study: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1352465817000443

Child and Adolescent Mental Health During COVID-19

• Examining children and adolescent mental health trajectories during the COVID-19 pandemic: Findings from a year of the Co-SPACE study (longitudinal study) https://doi.org/10.1002/jcv2.12153 

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