As a social psychologist and Programme Co-Director of Integrative Complexity (IC) Research, my work builds on fifteen years of running community-based programmes operationalising the cross-culturally validated empirical measurement frame of the interactionist cognitive model, integrative complexity (IC), through participatory research and end-user partnerships in diverse communities to increase resilience and address destructive conflict.
The diverse population samples have included young people labelled as 'most disruptive', young people and adults struggling with substance use, and long-term prisoners about to be or released into communities, as well as community organisation staff, teachers, social workers, police and prison guards. A current focus is on identifying the essential ingredients for recovery support of young people after substance use treatment.
Invited to join a theoretical and applied study using a social sensing approach with AI/ ML methodologies to analyse collective frontline workers’ resilience and resistance, led by Prof Jagdip Singh (Case Western Research University), Prof Chris Buamann (Macquaraie University) and Prof Fei Guo (Macquarie University, this research is being developed further in a NIHR funded Programme Development project, ‘An economically sustainable programme for real time tracking and predicting resilience, resistance, burnout among frontline social care professionals and community organisation workers’.
I have recently co-led the integration of IC (Suedfeld, 201) and ADAPT (Silove, 2013) into a new model and testable analytical framework, ‘CODIA’ (COping through Differentiating and Integrating to Adapting), with Prof Chris Baumann (Macquarie University), Prof Derrick Silove (University of New South Wales), and Prof Valerie DeMarinis (Umeå University). This built on my involvement with the UNICEF-Cambridge Learning Passport (Boyd-MacMillan & DeMarinis, 2020), featuring the first linking of the IC model with the Adaptation and Development After Trauma (ADAPT) model. The Learning Passport has reached over 10million students and educators in 46 countries. In partnership with the Swedish youth organisation, Fryshuset, IC-ADAPT informed my designing and testing of the course, ICbility, with an external evaluation from Umeå University.
ADAPT was initially developed with and for refugee populations, but its focus on the psychosocial interactions among five adaptive psychological systems and their societal correlates (safety/security; networks/bonds; justice; identities/roles; existential meaning) applies to general populations. This led to the co-founding of the IC-ADAPT Consortium.
In the Department of Psychiatry, I lead the ‘Public and Mental Health, Ageing, and the Brain’ (PHAB) group. I am also a member of the steering committee for the interdisciplinary research centre, Cambridge Public Health, and the Convenor of the Myanmar Desk at the Refugee Hub, Centre for Global Human Movement.
