Dr Lucy Tully is a Senior Lecturer and Senior Supervising Psychologist in the School of Psychology at the University of Sydney. She has over 20 years of clinical and research experience, with expertise in child mental health, father engagement, and evidence-based parenting and family interventions. She also she works clinically as a psychologist delivering evidence-based intervention to families of children with emotional and behavioural problems at the Child Behaviour Research Clinic (CBRC) at the University of Sydney.

She is passionate about extending the reach and impact of evidence-based interventions to improve the mental health and well-being of all Australian children.

Childhood Disruptive Behaviour Disorders (DBDs), including Oppositional Defiant Disorder and Conduct Disorder, are common and have severe and profound consequences for the child, their family, and the wider community. Behavioural parent training (BPT) interventions for DBDs are among the most researched and well-substantiated of child mental health interventions. Despite this, up to a third of participants fail to show improvements and drop-out rates are often high. Measurement-Based Care (MBC) involves the routine session-by-session collection of measures throughout treatment about symptoms, functioning, and the therapeutic relationship, and feedback on these measures is used to facilitate collaborative decision-making between clinicians and clients. Considerable research on adult mental health interventions has found MBC significantly improves outcomes and reduces drop out, yet little research has been conducted on MBC for interventions in child mental health, and this approach is rarely used in clinical practice. This project will establish the efficacy of MBC within an evidence-based parenting intervention for DBDs. The primary aim of this project is to conduct a randomised controlled trial (RCT) to examine the efficacy of Measurement-Based Care (MBC; which involves session-by-session measures plus feedback to parents, clinicians, and supervisors) versus Monitoring as Usual (MAU; which involves measures completed pre, post and three-month follow up) for improving symptoms of child DBDs and parent engagement in a BPT intervention.

Co-Investigators: Professor Mark Dadds, Professor David Hawes, Ms Olivia Liew, Dr Trisha Nowland, Dr Jaimie Northam, Dr Talia Carl, Ms Alex Roach, Dr Bridie Leonard, Ms Lindsay McFarlane.