The School extends its congratulations to Dr Kevin Dyer who was presented with the May Davidson Award in December in London. 

The May Davidson Award is given by the British Psychological Society’s Division of Clinical Psychology (DCP) for clinical psychologists who have made an outstanding contribution to the development of clinical psychology within the first 10 years of their work as a qualified practitioner.   Previous winners of the award have included David Clark, Richard Bentall, and Simon Baron-Cohen.

Kevin has been involved in a number of initiatives that contributed to his success in obtaining this award. His role as Co-ordinator of the Diploma/MSc in Applied Psychology (Clinical Specialism) at Queen’s has led to the development of an innovative training model for the prequalification clinical workforce.

Kevin is also clinical lead for the largest adult psychological therapy team in Northern Ireland and has fostered a number of award-winning service developments during his time as service manager (e.g. Northern HSC Trust Psychology Outcomes Framework). Other key factors that were acknowledged by the Division of Clinical Psychology awards committee included Kevin's OCD and "Troubles"-related PTSD research programmes, as well as his local contribution to the NIBPS and DCPNI for the past 16 years. 

Kevin was nominated by Dr Ciaran Shannon, Professor Chris McCusker and Dr Petra Corr (Head of Northern HSC Trust Psychological Services)

Kevin said about the award:

“I felt very privileged that my peers would even nominate me for the May Davidson. It's both an amazing honour and very humbling to actually be successful in winning the award, considering its history and the contribution previous winners have made to the profession. Not only is this a high point for me in terms of personal achievement, but it also illustrates the overall high standards of clinical psychology training, practice and research in Northern Ireland. I hope that such an award will draw attention to the great work that clinical psychology is doing in Northern Ireland.

The biggest honour was that I was invited to deliver the May Davidson Lecture at the DCP Annual Conference 2015, which I presented on my clinical experience working with Troubles-related PTSD and my research programme in that area. My lecture was entitled 'Post-traumatic reactions following "The Troubles" conflict in Northern Ireland'.

In terms of the next 10 years, my ambitions are to develop the accessibility, quality and innovative practice of psychological therapies in Northern Ireland and contribute to improving the mental health of our population. I would also hope to develop our understanding of the theory and interventions for OCD and PTSD, particularly "Troubles"-related trauma by developing an effective research programme at Queen's”.