Chartered Psychologist (British Psychological Society), PhD in Psychology
Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
Associate Professor in Psychology and Human Development at UCL Institute of Education, London
Selected Projects
Optimising collaborations and reducing inequalities of Early Childhood Intervention in post-Covid-19 South Africa
(2021 to 2023)
Project funded by the British Academy, under their Tackling Global Challenges 2020 call. The project looks to generate evidence of effective multi-agency practices that improve early childhood intervention services in South Africa.
The work is led by Dr Castro-Kemp at Roehampton with the collaboration of Pretoria University colleagues (Centre for Augmentative and Alternative Communication).
Froebel meets Ofsted: What makes an outstanding nursery?
(2020 to 2022)
Project funded by the Froebel Trust, analysing the link between Ofsted inspections of early education settings and children's developmental outcomes.
The Education Health and Care plans for children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities in England (2015-2018)
Project funded by the British Academy/Leverhulme Trust looking at the quality of the content included in the English Education Health and Care plans
ICF Med-Use: Using the International Classification of Functioning Disability and Health for multi-disciplinary teams in early childhood intervention (2015-2018)
Project Funded by the European Commision to support multi-agency work for the improvement of service provision for children with disabilities.
Other Previous Funded Research
1. 2017-2018: Principal Investigator, ‘Froebelian Pedagogy in the light of the Children and Families Act 2014’, Funded by Froebel Trust (£14,959). This project examines the content of Education Health and Care plans (statutory documents) for young children (up to 8 years of age) with special educational needs and disabilities. Socioeconomic inequalities and quality related issues of the provision are identified and discussed. The analysis was performed using the International Classification of Functioning Disability and Health (ICF) system, by the World Health Organisation. URL: https://www.froebel.org.uk/research-old/froebelian-pedagogy/
2. 2015: Co-investigator, ‘The new Special Educational Needs Framework: Make it work!’, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council [ESRC], ESRC Festival of Social Sciences (£1,410). This event united 130 professionals, parents and policy makers for a debate around the policy for special educational needs and disabilities in England. URL: https://esrc.ukri.org/files/public-engagement/festival-of-social-science/festival-programme-2015/
3. 2015-2016: Principal Investigator, ‘Norming of the culture free Intelligence Test CFT-20’, funded by Hogrefe Publishing Corp. (£40,000). This project enabled the publication and distribution of the first culture-free intelligence test with English norms available to the public.
4. 2012-2014: Co-investigator in a 6 country-consortium, “ICF-Train”, funded by the European Commission, Leonardo DaVinci scheme (300,000€). This cross-country partnership developed a web-based tool that promoted continuous professional development for education/early years education professionals on how to use the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (by the World Health Organisation) to describe functioning of young children with disabilities. URL: https://www.icf-training.eu/index.php?menupos=0