I am Clinical Reader in Youth Mental Health at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London. I work between the Academic Department of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry and South London & Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, where I am an Honorary Consultant Clinical Psychologist.

Children and young people's mental health; school- and community-based mental health services; global mental health; task-sharing; prevention and treatment of anxiety, depression, conduct problems and their co-occurrence; development and testing of psychosocial interventions; randomised controlled trials; mixed-method evaluation; evidence synthesis; co-design

My research is concerned with preventing and treating common mental health problems and improving social outcomes for underserved children, young people (up to age 25) and their families. I work on: (i) understanding contextual influences on mental health and associated inequalities in early life; (ii) co-designing psychosocial interventions and other practice innovations with disadvantaged and seldom-heard groups; (iii) investigating outcomes and implementation processes in pragmatic trials and service evaluations; and (iv) integrating data to understand how, why and for whom interventions are (and are not) effective.

I collaborate with partners in the UK and internationally to generate and translate evidence in diverse settings beyond traditional clinics. This includes projects in schools, colleges, children's centres, youth services, and community spaces such as barbershops. Scalability is addressed through brief intervention formats, transdiagnostic practice elements, low-cost digital platforms, and task-sharing models of care involving community volunteers, peers and paraprofessionals.

Current and recent projects

• METROPOLIS: MEchanistic TRial Of Problem sOLving and behavIoural activation for youth depreSsion. Funder: Wellcome Trust. Role: PI. 2024-28.
• The Looking Forward Project: Pragmatic adaptive trial of hope-focused mentoring to improve mental health and social outcomes for young women who are not in education, employment or training in deprived coastal areas, Funder: NIHR Public Health Research. Role: Co-PI. 2024-29.
• Better Sleep, Better Health: Designing a school-based sleep health intervention in Uganda. Funder: MRC Public Health Intervention Development. Role: Co-I. 2024-25.
• CATALYST: Co-designing and testing an Asset-based TAsk-sharing modeL for Youth mental health Services in deprived communiTies. Funder: NIHR Applied Research Collaboration in Kent, Surrey and Sussex (ARC KSS). Role: Co-PI. 2022-25.
• Baatcheet (‘Conversation’): Developing a web-based storytelling intervention to address anxiety, depression and social disability among Indian youth aged 16-24 years. Funder: Grand Challenges Canada. Role: Co-PI. 2022-24.
• PRIDE: PRemIum for aDolEscents. Developing and evaluating a suite of transdiagnostic mental health interventions for common adolescent mental health problems in India. Funder: Wellcome Trust. Role: Clinical Academic Director. 2016-22.
• Active Ingredients: Understanding mechanisms of psychological interventions for youth anxiety and depression. Funder: Wellcome Trust. Role: PI (problem solving); Co-I (hopefulness, self-disclosure and psychoeducation). 2020-21.