Matt Woolgar, King’s College London, United Kingdom

Doctor Matt Woolgar is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist in the UK and led the National Adoption and Fostering Team at the Michael Rutter Centre, Maudsley Hospital, London. He worked there for over 20 years, conducting assessments and treatment of complex presentations of adopted children or children from the care system, especially for disentangling the effects of biological and neurodevelopmental factors from attachment, trauma and behavioural issues. 

Matt has been an attachment researcher and developmental psychologist for over 30 years, starting at the Winnicott Research Unit at the University of Cambridge, then at the Anna Freud Centre at University College London (UCL), and most recently at King’s College London. His current research focuses on how adopted, fostered, and children with social care involvement experience mental health services, and especially how concepts of attachment and trauma are understood across different stakeholders, and how these different understandings act as barriers for children and their families to access evidence-based support.