Research

Judy Corlyon

Judy is currently principal researcher/consultant at the Institute, to which she returned after three years spent working as a principal research fellow at the Policy Research Bureau. In addition to her previous time at the Tavistock Institute, Judy has worked for many years in universities and children’s organisations as a researcher on family policy.

Her main areas of interest are parenting and parenting support, relationships between parents and children following divorce and separation, teenage parents, and vulnerable children, especially those looked after away from home. She brings sector knowledge and a wide range of research expertise to studies of these groups and evaluation of the services designed to support them. Underpinning all of this work is a commitment to research that makes a positive difference to children and families.

She is currently leading research on services for children whose parents are drug users and on the ways in which mainstream services can support disadvantaged children and their non-resident parents. Most recent projects have been the strand of the evaluation of the Parenting Fund which examines the role of the funded projects, and a study of current services supporting the parents of teenagers. Previously she has been involved in research on teenage parents, childcare, health and health promotion for young people, the mental health needs of children in the child protection system and residential care for children in other countries. Recent projects on which Judy has acted as consultant are a study examining the care of children living in institutions in Morocco and an evaluation of a service designed to prevent teenage pregnancies and support teenage parents.

In 1996 Judy founded the National Teenage Parent Research and Practice Group, a national network for anyone working with and on behalf of teenage parents. She is currently Chair of the Trustees of Docklands Outreach, a charity supporting disadvantaged young people and their families in East London.

Recent publications include:

Supporting Parents of Teenagers (2007) (DfES)
(read here)

Holidays for Families in Need: Policies and Practice in the UK. (FHA, 2006).
(read here)

Sex, Pregnancy and Parenthood for Young People who are Looked After (2004) in E. Burtney and M. Duffy (eds)Young People and Sexual Health, Palgrave