Centre for Abuse and Trauma Studies (CATS)
About us
CATS is a centre for research, practice and training around issues of trauma, abuse and adversity and impacts on victims, perpetrators and professionals’ mental health and wellbeing. We take a lifespan approach with interest specifically in adolescents and adults as well as lifetime impacts of childhood abuse. Its focus is on trauma experience and factors which promote resilience, both in-person and online. The Centre combines psychology and criminology with a focus on real life and online experience of abuse and other harms, as well as utilising a range of research methods including those online.
CATS provides research, both academic and applied, consultancy, practice training, media dissemination, continuing professional development, knowledge exchange and learning in a broad range of abuse and trauma-related topics across the lifespan, including with children, adolescents, adults and in older age.
Publications
Spence, R., Martellozzo, E. and DeMarco, J. 2024. Content moderator coping strategies: associations with psychological distress, secondary trauma and wellbeing. Journal of Media Psychology: Theories, Methods, and Applications.
Martellozzo, E., Bleakley, P., Bradbury, P., Spence, R. and DeMarco, J. 2024. Supporting digital key workers: Addressing the challenges faced by content moderators during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. International Journal of Technology, Policy and Management. 24 (2), pp. 212-228. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJTPM.2024.137818
Spence, R., Bifulco, A., Bradbury, P., Martellozzo, E. and DeMarco, J. 2023. The psychological impacts of content moderation on content moderators: a qualitative study. Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace. 17 (4). https://doi.org/10.5817/cp2023-4-8
Our CPD training
Our Staff
Director – Professor Antonia Bifulco;
Associate Directors - Professor Elena Martellozzo (Criminology) and Dr Jeffrey Demarco (Psychology)
Senior Researcher: Dr Ruth Spence (Psychology)
CATS is located at: Town Hall, TG47, Middlesex University, Hendon NW4 4BT