Chartered Registered Clinical Psychologist

Dr. Nicola Kennelly

Clinical psychology offers a scientific, evidenced based understanding to mental health, emotional well-being and behaviour. Dr. Nicola Kennelly, is a Chartered Registered Clinical Psychologist. She has over 20 years experience, and worked in the field of psychology at various grades within the NHS since 1994. She completed her doctoral training in Newcastle upon Tyne in 2001, where she became fascinated with understanding the effects of nature and nurture upon human development. Her elective placement was in a specialist regional service assessing young people with developmental disorders. Since qualifying she has specialised in working with children, young people and their families. Her special areas of interest have been in attachment and neurodevelopmental diagnoses.

Dr. Nicola Kennelly worked for 12 years as a Clinical Psychologist across Cumbria in two Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) teams. During this time she took on leadership for autism spectrum disorders within CAMHS and worked remotely into child development and multi-agency assessment teams. She also supported the strategic development of these services. She was responsible for working with young people with complex mental health conditions (e.g. depression, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, self-harm, suicidal concerns, somatic complaints, addictions, and stress responses), where a high degree of risk was presented. She contributed to a duty rota for emergencies and high risk cases.

Nicola remained in the NHS for 25 years until 2019, taking on several posts in the fields of neurodevelopmental and physical health psychology. She has worked with children with learning disabilities, worked in a child development centre, and worked for the Cumbria Adult Autism Assessment Team. She has worked with children with learning disabilities, in a child development centre, for the Cumbria Adult Autism Assessment Team, and with children with physical health conditions such as diabetes and those with unexplained medical conditions (e.g. chronic pain, fatigue).

She has also had her own successful private business since 2014. Since this began she has worked on a part time basis with looked after children in a residential setting. She has offered consultancy and supervision to other agencies and clinicians, completed assessments for legal proceedings, and taken on other short-term projects e.g. for BBC Radio Cumbria and 'Born Naughty,' Channel 4.

In addition to the standard training requirements to be a clinical psychologist, Dr. Nicola Kennelly has also undertaken the following additional training: 'Confident Parenting' training (for children with developmental difficulties), Attachment and Psychopathology training (Pat Crittenden), Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (trainer status – by Prof LeCouteur), Child Clinical Neuropsychology (BPS Division of Neuropsychology), Cognitive assessments with children, Mellow Parenting training and Webster Stratton parent training ('the incredible years'), Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) with adults and children, and the British Psychological Society's approved 'certificate in trauma treatments', 'certificate in third wave CBT', 'certificate of supervision', attachment style interview training, and dyadic developmental psychotherapy (DDP) level 1.

Nicola has also completed training in 'level 2 DDP'.

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