Dr Lisa Golds

Innovation project

Lisa’s Fellowship is concerned with caregiver smartphone use and its impact on the caregiver-infant relationship. Her PhD in Clinical Psychology focused on the risk factors for increased maternal smartphone use, and the impact of such use on the mother-infant dynamic. The results of Lisa’s correlational and experimental research on this subject suggested that smartphone use poses a risk to mother-infant relationships at a population level. Given these stark findings, Lisa decided that developing education and support programmes for mothers throughout the perinatal period is of the utmost importance.

Lisa’s Innovation Fellowship will focus on the development of a digital platform that will provide both education and social support for caregivers with young infants. A co-production method is proposed to ensure that the platform is designed in consultation with caregivers who understand their own needs and current barriers to education and mental health support. This will create a unique research project with the potential for commercialisation, as well as delivering direct impact to the general population. As problematic smartphone use rapidly becomes a public health concern, the provision of education and support to caregivers regarding their own smartphone use habits will help protect the wellbeing of infants and young families who may otherwise be at risk.

Lisa’s Fellowship will be housed within the School of Health in Social Science (HiSS), but the research activities are designed to be maximised through interdisciplinary collaboration. The potential for commercialisation is also implicit within the work as the main deliverable, with a digital education platform and support app being proposed as the key output.