Meet the team

Lisa Gentle BSc (Hons), PgCert, GMBsS - Research Associate

Lisa’s role as Research Associate involves her working on targeted research projects alongside fulfilling the role of Assistant Managing Editor of the Norland Educare Research Journal. Lisa is currently conducting qualitative analysis of Emotion Coaching data and has previously conducted similar analysis for an Attachment Aware Schools project which resulted in co-authorship of a detailed report and sole authorship of a paper. She also provides other researchers with support and collaborates with others working on research projects. This aspect of her role has resulted in co-authorship of a paper about infant sleep submitted to the Norland Educare Research Journal for publication.

Lisa is nearing the end of an attachment related psychology research PhD investigating the association between implicit secure base script knowledge and unconscious assumptions about help seeking and help providing behaviours in mentoring relationships.

Her first career was as a nursery nurse, which involved working in a variety of roles including as a nanny and managing a day nursery. Later she worked in further education, initially as an Early Years Care NVQ assessor, and then as college lead for the assessment and internal quality assurance of all vocational, City and Guilds, and BTEC qualifications. After finishing a degree in psychology and qualifications in baby massage, counselling, and mentoring alongside full-time work, Lisa worked as a mental health worker, a student counsellor, and as an author for courses delivered nationally to people in prison and on probation.

Lisa’s experience as a nursery nurse and assessor showed her the incredible impact well trained early years professionals have on the children they work with. She is passionate about conducting high quality research aimed at informing excellent practice that brings tangible benefits to people.