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Helen Minnis

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Helen Minnis
Alma materUniversity of Glasgow
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
Known forChild and Adolescent Psychiatry
Scientific career
InstitutionsUniversity of Glasgow
Maudsley Hospital

Helen Minnis is a Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of Glasgow. She studies reactive attachment disorder and other developmental conditions.

Early life and education

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Minnis earned a bachelor's degree in biochemistry at the University of Glasgow in 1985.[1] She remained there for her medical studies and completed a bachelor of medicine, bachelor of surgery in 1988.[1] In the 1990s Minnis worked as a doctor in an orphanage in Guatemala.[2] Here she worked with children that had been abused and neglected.[3] It was whilst she was in Guatemala that she became interested in attachment disorder.[4] She noticed that children in orphanages would cling to visitors, whilst children in nearby villages hid from strangers.[3] When she returned to Glasgow she noticed that children there were suffering from similar conditions; which she attributed to neglect.[5] She moved to the Maudsley Hospital, where she trained in psychiatry and focussed her research on children with reactive attachment disorder.[5] She was awarded a Wellcome Trust Clinical Fellowship to work at the Institute of Psychiatry Social, Genetic and Developmental Research Centre from 1995 to 1999.[1] In 1996 she was award a master's degree in epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.[1] She earned a PhD in child and adolescent psychiatry in 1998.[1]

Research and career

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Her research today considers the clinical aspects and behavioural genetics of attachment disorder.[2][6][7] She completed her psychiatric training in the University of the West of Scotland before joining the University of Glasgow as a lecturer in 2003. Minnis has studied the mental health of adopted children in Scotland. She found that nurturing parents were incredibly important in a child's psychological development. She has shown that children who suffer from early neglect sometimes have problems with their frontal lobe.[8] In Glasgow she has been piloting the New Orleans Intervention Model,[9] which provides attachment-based assessments for the caregiving relationships of children under five.[8][10] The process takes a few months, including intensive trials of treatment to improve the relationships of people in their homes.[8] She is Chief Investigator of the BeST? randomised controlled trial that compared the New Orleans Intervention Model with social work services.[11] She has been involved with the Scottish Government Scottish Attachment in Action which looks to train and support people about the importance of attachment relationships.[8][12] She has investigated how reactive attachment disorder impacts other developmental disorders, including autism spectrum disorder.

Minnis is part of the Autism Innovative Medicine Studies-2-Trials that studies the biology and development of autism in an effort to inform new treatments.[13][14] Minnis is a member of the United Kingdom's Black Female Professors Forum.[15] She delivered a TEDx talk Lead by admitting you don't know where she spoke about attachment theory and family relationships.[16] In 2011 she was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.[1]

Selected publications

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  • Minnis, Helen (2006). "Children in foster care: Mental health, service use and costs". European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. 15 (2): 63–70. doi:10.1007/s00787-006-0452-8. PMID 16523249. S2CID 29317644.
  • Minnis, Helen (2017). Christopher Gillberg, Encyclopedia of Autism Spectrum Disorders. Springer.
  • Minnis, Helen (2012). Attachment and loss in childhood and beyond. Pearson Longman. pp. 223–233. ISBN 9781408237250.

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f "Helen Minnis is appointed Guest Professor at the Gillberg Neuropsychiatry Centre - University of Gothenburg, Sweden". Göteborgs universitet. Retrieved 2019-10-12.
  2. ^ a b "University of Glasgow - Research Institutes - Institute of Health & Wellbeing - Our staff - Professor Helen Minnis". www.gla.ac.uk. Retrieved 2019-10-12.
  3. ^ a b Health (ACAMH), Association for Child and Adolescent Mental. "In conversation... Professor Helen Minnis on Attachment – Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health (ACAMH) – Podcast". Podtail. Retrieved 2019-10-12.
  4. ^ "Minnis, Helen - Gillberg centrum, University of Gothenburg, Sweden". Göteborgs universitet. Retrieved 2019-10-12.
  5. ^ a b "BBC Radio Scotland - Brainwaves, Series 1, Episode 5". BBC. Retrieved 2019-10-12.
  6. ^ "Dr Helen Minnis talks about attachment formation". www.celcis.org. Retrieved 2019-10-12.
  7. ^ "Children on the edge". HeraldScotland. Retrieved 2019-10-12.
  8. ^ a b c d "Why Attachment Matters - an interview with Professor Helen Minnis". Scottish Attachment In Action (SAIA). Retrieved 2019-10-12.
  9. ^ Tarren-Sweeney, Michael; Vetere, Arlene (2013-09-11). Mental Health Services for Vulnerable Children and Young People: Supporting Children who are, or have been, in Foster Care. Routledge. ISBN 9781136213977.
  10. ^ CELCIS (2011-12-09), Dr Helen Minnis, retrieved 2019-10-12
  11. ^ "King's College London - The BeST? Services Trial: effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of the New Orleans Intervention Model for Infant Mental Health". www.kcl.ac.uk. Retrieved 2019-10-12.
  12. ^ "Delivering Innovation through Research - Scottish Government Health and Social Care Research Strategy - gov.scot". www.gov.scot. Retrieved 2019-10-12.
  13. ^ "About Us". 2018-12-06. Retrieved 2019-10-12.
  14. ^ "University of Glasgow". 2018-09-17. Retrieved 2019-10-12.
  15. ^ "Helen Minnis – Black Female Professors Forum". Retrieved 2019-10-12.
  16. ^ Lead by admitting that you don't know | Helen Minnis | TEDxGlasgow, retrieved 2019-10-12
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