Trainee Research Excellence Award 2024 winners announced
The Trainee Research Excellence Award has been awarded to two exceptional clinical psychologists
23 January 2025
We are pleased to announce that the Trainee Research Excellence Award for 2024 has been given jointly to two exceptional newly trained Clinical Psychologists. It is a measure of their early research work that for the first time in the history of the Award that it has been given jointly.
Dr Daniel Edge
Dr Daniel Edge was a trainee on the Exeter University Clinical Psychology Doctoral Programme and is now working as a Clinical Psychologist in the Under 18s Crisis Team for Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust. Daniel has been given the Award in recognition of his exemplary original thesis work completed during his training.
This research involved a systemic review and meta-analysis of self-guided digital interventions for the prevention of anxiety and depression and a clinical trial of a mobile app on worry and rumination in 236 young people. The positive outcomes showed benefits beyond waiting lists over six weeks. This impressive body of work has resulted in three separate papers in peer reviewed journals and a presentation at the European Association of Cognitive and Behavioural Therapy. This provides an original contribution to theory and method, a well powered clinical trial and shows a mastery of meta-analytic statistical methods. Worry and rumination are common transdiagnostic vulnerabilities for multiple psychological disorders and the development of scalable and effective self-help mobile phone apps has considerable promise in the NHS with its preventive agenda as well as to mental health charities. It has been a great start to Daniel's career, and we look forward to hearing about more of Daniel's work in the future.
Dr Tom Cawthorne
Dr Tom Cawthorne was a trainee on the Royal Holloway Clinical Psychology Doctoral Programme and is now working in the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and Great Ormond Street hospital for Children. Tom has been given the Award in recognition of his outstanding research work while training.
His research involved the development and evaluation of CBT for Chronic Loneliness in Young People. The intervention was a novel modular psychological intervention for loneliness and included writing a 30,000 word treatment manual. This work has given rise to four published papers, the development and delivery of a podcast via the Association of Child and Adolescent Mental Health which has had over 2,000 listeners. Tom is continuing to take this work forward with a leading editorial on the development of interventions to tackle loneliness in young people. He is now supervising Doctoral research projects and is part of an international collaboration writing a special issue series for the Lancet and is co-applicant on a grant to the Lorenz Foundation to deliver a practitioner conference to define 'chronic loneliness'. It has been a great start to a career, and we look forward to hearing about more of Tom's work in the future.