Before co-founding The Child Wellbeing Clinic, Dr Matt Woolgar was a Consultant Clinical Psychologist at the National Conduct Problems Clinic and Adoption and Fostering Team, where he has worked for over 20 years. He is a nationally recognised expert in child behavioural problems, attachment, parenting, and the mental health needs of adopted and fostered children.

Matt’s primary therapeutic expertise lies in assessing complex child presentations, including neurodivergence and learning disabilities, and tailoring intensive, individualised, evidence-based parenting approaches for families who have struggled with standard parenting interventions—for example, in the context of neurodevelopmental issues and neurodivergence; limited prosocial emotions; irritability; or with children who have experienced significant disruptions in their attachments.

Matt has been an attachment researcher and developmental psychologist for over 30 years, beginning at the Winnicott Research Unit, where he investigated the impact of maternal postnatal depression on infant attachment and child development. His current primary research interests focus on the personalisation of parenting interventions to fit individual child characteristics—especially where standard approaches have not been successful—and on attachment pathologies, their differential diagnosis/misdiagnosis, and the broader understanding of attachment phenomena across practitioner systems, as well as other mental health issues affecting care-experienced children more broadly.

You can see his publications here and more about his research journey and public engagement here.