Prof. Judy Hutchings has worked in North Wales for over 30 years. She is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist with the North West Wales NHS Trust and works with children with significant behavioural difficulties in both specialist and primary care service providers and other educators concerned with children and their families. She is also Director of the research team where she has worked since 1988 and undertakes research with referred children and their families and in early preventive work. She has held a number of grants and is the principal grant holder for the Health Foundation Grant researching the efficacy of the Webster-Stratton Incredible Years BASIC parenting programme for "high risk" children in Sure Start services across North Wales. She has published extensively and established the Incredible Years Wales, Centre to research and train people to deliver the Webster-Stratton parent, child and teacher programmes



Dr. Tracey Bywater came to Bangor University in 1995 to study Psychology. Her Ph.D. at Bangor investigated the link between infant speech perception and phonological short-term memory. Tracey has taught at Bangor, in both the Psychology and Criminology Departments. She retained her interest in children at risk of criminality and was appointed as Research Officer on the project evaluating the Incredible Years BASIC Parenting Programme in Welsh Sure Start areas in 2003. Since that time she has managed various projects, in the field of family interventions, and written up findings for publication. Tracey is currently a consultant for an Atlantic Philanthropies funded Irish IY evaluation, Project Trials Coordinator in the School of Psychology, Bangor University, and Research Fellow at Dartington’s Social Research Unit.

Nia Griffith is a PhD student with a 1+3 studentship funded by the University of Wales’ centre for developing teaching through the medium of Welsh. Nia graduated in Psychology from Bangor University in 2003. Nia then spent three years working as part of the management team of the Snowdonia Design and Enterprise Centre, a community project aimed at providing affordable premises and support for businesses operating in rural areas.
Nia successfully completed her MSc in Psychological research in 2007, with her MSc project focusing on producing DVD’s of children displaying variable levels of distractibility. These DVD’s are now being researched as an Undergraduate project. Nia is now in the second year of her PhD. The focus of the PhD is the Evaluation of the Incredible Years Toddler parenting programme being run in nine flying start areas in Wales. The programme is being evaluated via a combination of parent report measures, a direct measure of the child’s developmental level and a direct observation of parent-child interaction. Data collection will be completed by December 2009, the PhD is expected to be completed by October 2010

Kirstie Cooper graduated in Psychology at the University of Liverpool in 2008 and then returned to Wales to continue her studies. Kirstie studied an M.Sc. in Foundations of Clinical Psychology at Bangor University and then joined the Incredible Years team as a Research Assistant, to assist Nia with the collection of data for the evaluation of the Toddler Programme. In October, Kirstie was awarded a 125th anniversary bursary to study a Ph.D. at Bangor University. Her Ph.D. will evaluate the new four-session Incredible Years School Readiness Parenting programme, aimed at enhancing school readiness in pre-school children.

Catrin Jones completed her first degree in 1994 at Bangor University she then completed her Masters in Edinburgh University before working as a lecturer in further education. She has also worked within the public sector supporting business development before starting her family and a Childminding business. After completing her post-graduate conversion diploma in Psychology with the Open University she is evaluating the Baby programme as part of her Ph.D. funded through the generosity of the Incredible Years charity and European Knowledge transfer fund.

Margiad Elen Williams read Psychology at Cardiff University and graduated in 2009. She had previously worked at the Incredible Years Centre during the summer of 2008 on a Go Wales placement. Following her graduation, she was fortunate to get a job as a temporary research assistant at the Incredible Years Centre helping to write research papers for publication. In October, she began work on an MRes (Masters in Research) funded by KESS (European funding with Incredible Years Wales as co-sponsor) comparing two measures of child developmental abilities.

Nicole Gridley read psychology at Bangor University, graduating in 2007 and is now in the final year of her Masters degree in the Foundations of Clinical Psychology also at Bangor. She was awarded a GoWales placement to assist in the pilot study, evaluation of the DINA School Programme in the summer of 2009. She was recently given an extended contract to assist in the data collection of the evaluation of the Toddler Programme with Nia Griffith. Nicole plans to continue in academia to complete a Ph.D. working in the area of child development; this will hopefully lead onto a successful career within this field of research.

Laura Parry graduated from Bangor University in 2009 with a degree in Psychology, she returned to Bangor to complete a Masters in Applied Behaviour Analysis. She is currently working at the IY Wales Centre on a GO Wales placement assisting on the Lottery project. From September she will continue her involvement with the Lottery project as a PhD student aiming to build social and emotional competence in high risk children.

Ceri Evans recently completed her degree in Psychology with Child and Language Development at Bangor University. As part of her undergraduate research project she examined the effect of a Welsh phonics based direct instruction programme on children's reading ability. She is currently working as a project research support officer at the IY Wales Centre for the Lottery project evaluating the Incredible Years Small Group Dina Programme in Gwynedd. She hopes to begin an MSc in Applied Behaviour Analysis this September.

Nia Gwawr is currently in her second year studying for her Psychology degree at Cardiff University. In her final year she hopes to carry out research looking at the most effective methods of investigating the symptoms of ADHD in children. She received a GO Wales placement to come and work at the IY Wales Centre for 10 weeks over the summer as a research assistant. Nia will also be assisting Dilys with the IY Wales annual newsletter during her placement.

Dilys Williams is the Centre's Administrator and has worked for the Centre since March 2001. Her responsibilities include the creating and maintaining of all administrative files pertaining to the Centre; the organising of training courses, and the organising of the annual Incredible Years Wales conference. The Centre's annual Newsletter is another of Dilys' tasks.


Kath Chitty joined the Centre in February 2006 and is providing part-time clerical support to the team in general and Dilys in particular, covering many aspects of the work of the Centre. Prior to retirement from full-time employment in August 2005, Kath worked for fourteen years in the busy administrative team in the School of Psychology, Bangor University.

Gwen Owen has come to IY Cymru from a building society background and will work on the Lottery project for two days a week as the Administrator, and as the IY Centre Information Officer for one day a week.

Gwen has been in the post since early April and, amongst other tasks, maintains the school contact database, and has received training in bookkeeping to enable her to handle the finances.