Dominic Mc Sherry

Dominic McSherry is a developmental psychologist whose work for the last 20 years has been focused on understanding the impact of experiencing adversity and trauma in childhood across the lifecourse, and using that knowledge to inform theory, policy and practice.  His work has been focused specifically on children who enter care due primarily to maltreatment, and either remain in care throughout their childhood, return home to birth parents, or are adopted.  He has attracted over £3Million in external research funding as PI to support this work.  He has led several largescale research projects in the area of children in care and adopted, some notable examples of which are: the OFMDFM-funded 'Mind Your Health' study (2015), which developed the first national profile of the physical and mental health of children and young people in care in Northern Ireland; and the ongoing ERSC-funded 'Care Pathways and Outcomes' study, the only longitudinal study in the world that has followed a full population of children (n=374) who were under the age of five and in care in Northern Ireland in March 2000, through to early adulthood.  A strong feature of his work is the high level of co-design and co-production with external partner organisations involved.  Dominic has published extensively in this area through journal articles, research reports, books, book chapters, and conference papers.  He is a member of a number of UK research project scientific advisory committees, and a member of the ESRC and MRC peer review colleges.  He has been guest editor for two journal special issues: 'Understanding Outcomes for Care Experienced Children', Children Australia, 2018; and 'Adoption and Trauma', Child Abuse and Neglect, 2021.  He is currently Editor in Chief for the Journal of Child and Adolescent Trauma (JCAT).  He also represents the School of Psychology within the Faculty-level Institute of Mental Health Sciences.