Dr Celeste Foster
| Biography | Celeste is associate professor for mental health nursing at the University of Salford with a specialism in children and young people’s mental health. Celeste is a children and young people’s mental health nurse, adolescent psychodynamic therapist and academic who has been working in Child and Adolescent Mental Health, since 1995. Celeste has been selected as the 2025 Skellern Lecturer for 2025 – The Skellern Lecture is a highly prestigious annual event that celebrates advances in the field of mental health and mental health nursing (www.skellern.info). She will be delivering her lecturer entitled ‘It is only with the heart that one can see rightly: revealing the nature of children and young people’s mental health nursing’, at the University of Manchester on 5th June 2025. Celeste’s clinical and research interests and publications span psychoanalytic approaches to working with adolescents and their professional networks in relation to self-harm, complex psychosomatic presentations and developmental trauma, Child and adolescent mental health nursing intervention and identity, psychoanalytic approaches to improving relationally-focused care, and enabling organisations who support neurodiverse children and their families. Celeste’s portfolio of publications includes the first published peer-reviewed research studies in the field of CYP psychiatric intensive care nursing. She is currently co-leading a three-year programme of stakeholder engagement and research, in partnership with the national Association of Psychiatric care (NAPICU) to develop the evidence base to improve care quality and outcomes for children and young people requiring inpatient mental health care, and she leads a multi-disciplinary team developing smartwatch software to help young people in hospital settings who self-harm (Mood on the Move). Celeste Co-leads the Mental health and neurodiversity research theme within the Centre for Applied Health Research in the School of Health and Society, working with academic and practice partners to develop research partnerships, CAMH-related teaching and learning products and commercial enterprise projects. She is an executive committee member of NAPICU. As an independent psychotherapist she continues to provide clinical consultancy and supervision for NHS CYP mental health inpatient settings and third sector providers. |
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| Research Interests | Child and Adolescent Mental Health, CAMHS, Adolescence/Adolescent development, Mental health nursing identity and models of care, Self-harm and suicide, Emotional health and wellbeing in school settings, Developmental trauma, Adolescent psychodynamic psychotherapy, Application of psychoanalytic theory and research methods to nursing and mental health care; digital technology in CYP mental health, psychosocial, qualitative and mixed research methods |
| PhD Supervision Availability | Yes |
| PhD Topics | Child and Adolescent Mental Health, CAMHS, Adolescence/Adolescent development, Mental health nursing identity and models of care, Self-harm and suicide, Emotional health and wellbeing in school settings, Developmental trauma, Adolescent psychodynamic psychotherapy, Application of psychoanalytic theory and research methods to nursing; digital technology in CYP mental health. Mixed methods, psychosocial research methodologies, qualitative research methods. |