Two Glasgow academics have been awarded Travelling Fellowships by the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust as part of a project looking at an assessment and treatment programme for infants in foster care who have suffered abuse.

Dr Helen Minnis, a senior lecturer, and Dr Graham Bryce, an honorary senior lecturer in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in the Section of Psychological Medicine at the University of Glasgow, will travel to New Orleans in the United States and Romania to see how a programme of care developed by American psychiatrist Prof Charles Zeanah and his team could be applied in Glasgow.

The programme, which is aimed at infants who have suffered neglect or abuse,    stresses the relationship between the child’s mental health and the quality of their relationships with their parent or carer.

The programme involves a detailed assessment of those relationships and an intensive intervention which is designed to build healthy relationships and ensure that the developmental needs of the children are met. Trials of the programme in the US have resulted in a significant drop in the recurrence of maltreatment of children involved.

Prof Zeanah has also shown the psychological benefits of foster care over institutional care through a trial in Romania which saw the mental health of children placed with foster care improve compared to those in institutions.

Dr Minnis said: “By ensuring children form secure, rewarding attachments to their care-givers we can help protect their mental health.”

Dr Bryce also serves on the Scottish Government’s advisory Children and Young People’s Health Support Group.

For more information contact Stuart Forsyth in the University of Glasgow Media Relations Office on 0141 330 4831 or email s.forsyth@admin.gla.ac.uk

Notes to Editors
The Winston Churchill Memorial Trust was established in 1965 through public subscription to provide travelling fellowships for the advancement of education in any part of the world for the benefit of all British citizens.

First published: 22 June 2009

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