Ellen Hedstrom

Dr. Ellen Hedstrom is a PhD Research Fellow at the University of Southampton, affiliated with the Centre for Innovation in Mental Health (CiMH). Her research focuses on parenting stress, family functioning, and mental health issues among asylum seekers and children with neuropsychiatric disorders.

Her primary research interests include:

• Parenting stress and family functioning
• Mental health of asylum seekers and refugees
• Neuropsychiatric disorders
• Child and adolescent mental health

Dr. Hedstrom is currently leading research on the OPTIMA RCT trial, which provides online parent training for families on ADHD referral waitlists. Her work examines how digital interventions can support parents to better manage their children's co-occurring behavior problems during the waiting period for clinical assessment. She also has extensive experience teaching developmental psychopathology and research methods at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, and has led CiMH lab meetings for several years.

Her recent publications demonstrate a strong progression from foundational work on parenting narratives in asylum-seeking populations toward developing and testing structured digital interventions for ADHD management. The research shows increasing focus on practical applications of digital mental health solutions in real-world clinical settings.

She currently supervises PhD student Jennifer Tarabay and collaborates with the Southampton doctoral college to support academic development and research dissemination among doctoral students.