Professor Tracey Bywater
Professor of Family Wellbeing

Research

Overview

Tracey’s areas of interest lie in the evaluation and application of complex interventions to improve family wellbeing such as parent, child, and school programmes. In addition to outcomes or clinical effectiveness of these interventions, she is interested in process, implementation and fidelity, as well as cost effectiveness of such interventions.

Projects

• An independent evaluation of the Plymouth Parent Partnership: Supporting Parents On Kids Education in School (SPOKES) programme. This is a two-group randomised controlled trial (RCT) of Year 1 children, to assess the effects of SPOKES on children’s literacy and behaviour. Funded by the Education Endowment Foundation (2012-2015).
• Tailoring interventions to populations: Supporting the provision of evidence-based parenting programmes. A project funded by National Institute for Health Research, as part of Yorkshire and Humber’s CLAHRC portfolio of works (2013-2015).
• The development, implementation and evaluation of complex early intervention health and social services for vulnerable families and children in Ireland. Funded by Collaborative Applied Research Grants in Population Health and Health Service Research, HRB, Ireland (2014-2019).
• Better Start Bradford Innovation Hub has three themes to support families of children up to age three, 1. Social emotional well-being, 2. Nutrition, 3. Language. Dr Bywater is leading on the social emotional well-being theme. The Hub was funded as part of the £50m Big Lottery Fulfilling Lives: Better Start programme awarded to Bradford Trident.
• Enhancing Social Emotional Wellbeing in the Early Years (E-SEE). The E-SEE trial is a multi-disciplinary evaluation of the effectiveness and acceptability of Incredible Years (IY) Parent Programmes for 0-2 year-olds. This project is funded by the National Institute for Health Research Public Health Research (NIHR PHR) Programme (project number 13/93/10). The four-year project led by the Department of Health Sciences at York, with colleagues from the University’s Departments of Institute for Effective Education (IEE), Social Work and Social Policy and Centre for Health Economics, is backed by a £1.85 million grant from the NIHR (National Institute for Health Research). The study includes co-investigators from the universities of Plymouth, Central Lancashire, Sheffield, and Maynooth. Initial partners include Action for Children, Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust, and Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council.
• Co-Production of Policing Evidence, Research and Training: Focus Mental Health aims to find better ways of dealing with mental health issues through increased collaboration, the identification of ‘what works’, the production and sharing of research information, and improved and more systematic training.

Research group(s)

• Public Health and Society

Supervision

Tracey is able to supervise PhD projects in child behaviour – conduct problems and social and emotional competence; parent, teacher and child cognitive/behavioural interventions; outcomes and process effects; implementation fidelity.

Publications

Full publications list

• Link to Tracey's publications on PURE

External activities

Memberships

• Member of the British Psychological Society, Chartered Psychologist status
• Steering committee member of the Implementation Network – UK
• Honorary Senior Research Fellow, School of Psychology, Bangor University, Wales
• Chair of Board of Trustees, Children’s Early Intervention Trust
• Chair of the Trial Steering Committee of the South African Sinovuyo project

Editorial duties

• Guest Editor: 2012. Teacher Classroom Management. Better: Evidence-based Education, 5(1). 
• Editorial: Bywater T, (2012). Perspectives on the Incredible Years programme: psychological management of conduct disorder, The British Journal of Psychiatry 201, 85–87.
• Guest Editor: 2013-2014. Parents and Teachers Working Together. Better: Evidence-based Education, 6(2). 
• Guest Editor: 2014-2015, 'Partners in education: families and schools’Journal of Children’s Services, Special Edition, Autumn, 2015.

Invited talks and conferences

• Bywater, T. and Berry, V. (April 2012). Accommodations: Incredible Years programmes in Wales, Ireland and England. Part of a panel session with Jim Alexander, Scott Henggeler, & Eric Trupin, entitled ‘Adapting Blueprint Model Programs with Integrity: Accommodation versus Adaptation’. Blueprints Conference, San Antonio, Texas.
• Bywater, T. (May 2012), Keynote Speaker. The psychological management of conduct disorder, The Nurturing Group Annual Conference, Cardiff, UK.
• Bywater, T., Furlong, M., et al., (June, 2013), Preventing Antisocial and Criminal Behaviour: A Cochrane Review of the Effectiveness and Cost-Effectiveness of Group-Based Parenting Programmes for Childhood Conduct Problems. Society for Prevention Research Annual meeting, San Fransisco.
• September, 2014, Invited Keynote. Increasing parental input to children’s success, to launch the Parental Engagement Closing the Gap Project, Stokesley School.
• Invited to open the annual conference ‘Supporting Parents, Children and Teachers: research and practice’ held by the Centre for Evidenced Based Early Intervention, Bangor University, Wales, March 2015, and present awards, and give a presentation entitled ‘Reviewing successes and barriers of the randomised controlled trial design; lessons learned and future directions’.