Children of Twins Early Development Study

12/09/2026

Free online public talks, lunchtime and evening options, all welcome!

Tuesday 15 September, 11.30am - 1pm
Why do mental health issues run in families, and how can we support?

Join the Family Footsteps project team (https://www.kcl.ac.uk/research/family-footsteps) - we will hear from Professor Tom McAdams who researches the ways that mental health challenges may cluster in families and the Helping Families Team which offers community-based specialist parenting interventions and support. Both speakers will discuss their experiences of researching or working with families with mental health challenges, and some of the ways families can access support early.

Join for as much or as little as you like, with more talks in the series to follow.

Sign up here to receive the joining link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/family-footsteps-sharing-perspectives-on-mental-health-in-families-tickets-1998754433315?aff=oddtdtcreator

Tuesday 22nd September, 5-6.30pm
Understanding parenting: styles, challenges and support

Led by practitioners and parent support workers from the Empowering Parents Empowering Communities team, who facilitate parent-led groups to share parenting skills to enhance family life and help parents learn from one another. Join to hear about their work, and practice some of their interactive activities.

Family Footsteps is a project that brings parents together to explore their thoughts and concerns about mental health within families.

01/09/2026

✨ FREE ONLINE EVENT! Sign up link in bio! ✨
Family Footsteps is a project that brings parents together to explore their thoughts and concerns about mental health within families. Parents shared their insights on what aspects of mental health in families they believe that researchers should prioritise. From this, we have designed a series of discussion sessions, to try and shed light on some of these questions together.

In these discussion sessions, researchers, family mental health professionals and parents are invited to share knowledge about family mental health, with a focus on the topics raised throughout the Family Footsteps project.

These will be held online, with interactive elements for you to share your own perspectives.

🤝 Session 1: Why do mental health issues run in families, and how can we support? (Tuesday 15 September, 11.30am - 1pm)
We will be joined by the Helping Families Team which offers community-based specialist parenting interventions and support to parents with significant mental health problems that affect their parenting and family life. They will discuss their experiences of working with families with mental health challenges, and some of the ways families can access support to intervene on challenges early.

🤝 Session 2: Understanding parenting: styles, challenges and support (Tuesday 22nd September, 5-6.30pm)
This session will be led by practitioners and peer support workers from the Empowering Parents Empowering Communities team, who facilitate parent-led parenting groups to share parenting skills which enhance family life and help parents to learn from each other. Join to hear about the work they do, and practice some of the interactive activities they lead together.

All are welcome to attend whether a parent or researcher, and please do share with anyone you know who may be interested! We look forward to seeing you there ☺️

04/08/2026

Three CoTEDS team members graduated last week 🎉🎊🥳

Congratulations Dr Joanna Bright, our project co-ordinator, Sky, our placement student, and Dr Meredith Han who was also once a CoTEDS placement student!

We’re so proud and can’t wait to see what’s next for you 💛

16/06/2026

🎉✨ CoTEDS 2026 Prize Draw Winners!✨🎉

🍀 Congratulations to our lucky 24 Prize Draw winners - Carly, Bethan, David, Sarah, Laurie, Patrick, Rebecca, Sophie, Paige, Dale, Lauren, Nisha, Gina, Jai, Patrick, Oliver, Lauren, Rhian, Hamza, Jay, Beth, Abigail and Shannon!

🧡 Huge thank you to all the amazing busy mums and dads who have helped support CoTEDS by completing questionnaires and DNA kits. We couldn’t do our research without you! Your support means so much to us, and this is just a small token of our appreciation.

✨ The next CoTEDS prize draw will take place next year in April again and will include everyone who has completed their questionnaires and DNA kits between May 2026 and April 2027!

🩵 Thanks again to all who shared such lovely family photos of your special moments to share with the growing CoTEDS community - we’ve tried to tag all of you but let us know if we missed anything!

06/05/2026

Today is World Maternal Mental Health Day 💚
A reminder that maternal mental health matters-for mothers, children, and families everywhere. Let’s keep raising awareness, supporting one another, and continuing the conversation.

22/04/2026

Huge congratulations to Dr Joanna Bright on this incredible achievement 🎓✨
In this PhD, Joanna explored specific behaviours within the CoTEDS dataset to understand how parents and children influence one another. But this is just a small part of a much bigger picture - there are many other questions we could explore about parent-child relationships and development.
We’d love to hear your ideas for future research in the comments! 💭👇